Yes, yes. Take a seat by the fire. Would you perfer the wine or the brandy?

The wine? Excellent choice. It was bottled almost five hundred years ago. You like it?

Good.

So, where shall I begin? I remember the time I snuck into the major's mansion... The gentleman had fifteen guards patrolling the grounds alone! But his paranoia didn't stop there. He had a wizard magically lock the door to his daughter's bedroom. I had to spend ten solid minutes picking the lock before we could-

Oh.

You want me to start when I met the rest of my cohorts.

Very well.

I suppose I really should start a little before then-

No, really. It all ties together. Trust me!

Okay, that never works, but it really all does tie together.

Anyway, I was in the Temple of Mystra one fine evening--

You know, this would really go faster if you didn't interrupt all the time. Besides, it doesn't really matter WHY I was there, anyway. Oh, if you must know I was paying my respects to the diety. Admittedly the temple was closed at the time, but I always felt that the so called "business hours" were more of a guideline. Besides, I feel far more pious in the evening than the day. I can think of several times I've prayed during the evening. For example one time when the guards were a mere five inches from my nose. You see, I was stuck in the sewers after-

Oh. The temple. Right. So I was there, PRAYING, when I happen to spy a rather elderly gentleman at about the same time he noticed me. He opened his mouth, no doubt to congradulate me on my piety when I happened to notice another figure.

Who was the figure? Well, the person was hanging from the ceiling-

Yes, really. Stop interrupting.

The person was hanging from the ceiling, wielding a crossbow. He shot the old man three times. The old man fell to the ground and I rushed to help him.

I did! I'm not a murderer! In fact, at the time I had never killed anyone, human or otherwise, thank you very much.

In any case, I rushed over to see if there was anything I could do. The old man, whom I later learned was the high priest of Mystra in these parts, pressed a medallion in my hand and said "Keep this safe."

He did! Quite frankly, it annoys me that you keep questioning me. These are my memoirs, after all.

So he pressed the medallion into my hand and expired. I looked up to see six guards had just rushed in. The guards, being the typical brutish sort I've had to deal with over the years, leaped to the entirely wrong conclusion and assumed that just because I was standing over the body holding his hand that I had killed the high priest.

So I ran.

Well, of course I was innocent. I've always felt that it's easier to run away than to try to explain things to guards. Guards never understand my theories on economics anyway.

I went to one of my hideouts, The "Trolls Head" inn. I figured it might be best to lay low for a while until the guards hopefully completely forgot about me.

Yes, yes. I'm coming to them. Just be patient a little longer.

So I slept that day and got up the next evening. After I woke up and had a brief meal, I went back upstairs. I sat around mulling my possible options when around midnight I heard someone at my door. A brief fight ensued. I wound up outside the hotel (I jumped through the window in an attempt to escape) and dispatched one of my attackers. I was about to dispatch the other one and make good my escape when a burst of light struck my attacker unconscious. Immediately after that, a rather attractive elven woman lept from the window (the same from where I had been) and disarmed me. The wizard who had cast the spell grabbed my rapier and pointed at me.

They then proceeded to question me. After that, they found the medallion and took it from me!

Yes, the people who disarmed me were my earstwhile companions. I didn't know who they were at the time, of course.

Tell you more about them? I'm getting to that.

By the Gods I hate the outdoors.

Give me a clean city any day of the week.

I mean, in a city you can sleep in a bed with sheets, preferably with someone young and beautiful with you to keep you warm at night if the sheets don't do the trick.

I spent a lot of time in the wilderness after that evening in the temple, but I never got used to it.

Trees. Mountains. Bugs. Faugh.

Yes, yes. I know. You want me to get on with the story.

Well, after we left the city, We wound up spending several days (and more importantly, several torturous nights) outdoors. We were heading towards another city, Travensburg by name, when we came across a patrol of knights. I retired to a nearby grove of trees to-

Must we keep going over the same thing? I generally try to stay away from the prying eyes of whatever serves as the local police of any land. These were the typical brutish sort I was used to seeing in my career. The type that ask far too many questions of things that are none of their business. I mean, really! I never go up to THEM and ask them things like "Where were you yesterday?" or "Where did you get that?" live and let live, I always say.

Now, where was I when you interrupted me. Oh, yes. The knights.

It appears that some cur had been spreading false rumors about someone who had killed three people and stolen a precious artifact. The artifact in question sounded similar to the one that had been given to me several nights ago, though the discription was woefully inaccurate.

Given this new news, we decided to make our way through a mountain pass to avoid the patrols. After many hours of climbing (Have I mentioned I don't like mountains much either?) we stumbled across a kobold.

I had seen them before. Not often, but I knew what they looked like.

She launched into a long tale about the keys and how we would need them, as others were trying to collect them to unleash an unspeakable evil upon the world.

Yes, she was talking about THOSE keys. You must remember, this is the first we had heard of them. Granted, I knew far more than I would have ever wanted to know about the keys before my quest was finished.

Yes, she gave us the second key.

What did the keys do? Ah, now that is most definately a long story.

Orcs.

Nasty, brutish fellows. And they never bathe.

Ick.

So, after hearing the ramblings of the kobold priestess, we continued to Travensburg. Molistead's birthplace.

What was Travensburg like? Well, let's just say it went a lot towards explaining his character.

No, that's not completely fair. Molistead certainly had his moments. Why, I remember the time he actually saved my life by-

Oh, yes. I'm jumping ahead of myself again.

When we arrived at the town, we noticed that the grainery had burned down and that there was apparently a plague infesting the town. Annu almost immediately left to go help the villagers in their time of need. As I had no arts of physical healing (emotional, yes), I was unable to be of much assistance, so I whiled away my time speaking to a lovely lass by the name of Ravensong-

Yes, that Ravensong. Well I had to meet her SOMEWHERE, now didn't I?

In any case, I was learning more about her life (quite tragic, really) when Mr. Travens, the mayor of Travensburg, walked in.

At least I think he was the mayor. Come to think of it, I don't remember if I ever did find out.

Oh, well. Anyway, he informed us that since the grainery burned down due to some fungus or something, they were nearly out of food. They had ordered more, but apparently there was a band of orcs out there and they were worried that the shipment of food and supplies might have been waylaid.

Well, certainly I couldn't let such a thing go unpunished! I immediately lept up and, gathering my companions, including Ravensong (she was confident that the orcs were part of the band that had killed her family) we set off.

About an hour later, we found a wagon being waylaid by some orcs. We dispatched the orcs, to find out that a human was apparently controling them! Or at least leading them. We knocked him unconscious and brought the lot back to town.

Well... It wasn't that simple. Ravensong left us at that point to go kill more orcs. Lovely woman. A tad bit focused on her work more so than I think healthy.

In any case, we arrived back in town, got fresh horses and followed the trail Ravensong left us to the cave where the orcs were hiding. We snuck in, dispatched several orcs, found Ravensong, dispatched several more orcs, saved Ravensong from almost certain death, (she had been captured) and explored the rest of the cave complex, which had many more orcs, a few monsters that defy description, and another human. This one appeared to be in league with the dark powers and cast several spells of power before we defeated him also.

Yes, I made it sound easy. It wasn't. Trust me on that.

In any case, having secured the complex, we saddled what we could on the horses and made haste back to town. By this time it was quite late, so we turned in.

The next day, a group of villagers and the four of us went back into the cave complex. As the villagers loaded the remaining items of importance on wagons, we found a rather loathsome monster that had wandered into the complex overnight and dispatched it without too much trouble.

We then returned to town, to attempt to sell some of our hard-won treasure and to attend the trial of the bastard who-

Oh, dear. I'm sorry about that. Here, let me get a towel for you. While I'm at it, I'd better refill my wine glass.

I tend to get a bit upset when I talk about what happened next.

Sigh.

Well.

The human who had been leading the orcs was questioned. He replied that indeed, he had been leading the orcs, and that his brother would call down terrible vengence upon us if we did not release him now.

His brother turned out to be the other human we fought in the cave complex. I informed him that I had killed his brother myself.

Did I? Come to think of it, I don't think I did. I was bragging, attempting to cow the man.

One time I sincerely wish I had told the truth.

The man stood up. He had been bound. He no longer was. He had been manacled. He no longer was. How did he do this? I have no idea.

I panicked.

I knew he was a spellcaster. I had no idea what he could accomplish now that he had been freed. I lunged forward, and skewered him on my rapier.

He cursed me as he died.

YES, THAT-

Excuse me. Yes, that curse.

I found more about it much later. All I knew a day later was that I had been cursed. Specifically, I had -

No, I won't speak of it.

I will say this. The words he whispered to me as he died:

"Thank you, brother."

I still hear them in my dreams.

So.

I hate orcs. Have I mentioned that?

Oh. Sorry. I tend to wax prolific on the subject.

So I wanted to go to the monestary-

Oh, I forget the name off the bat. I had heard that there was a monestary on the path we were going that had some people that might be able to help with the curse I had recently acquired.

Anyway, I wanted to go to the monestary. Ravensong wanted to kill the remainder of the tribe of orcs that had slaughtered their family. The others wanted to find Annu, who had disappeared-

No, I didn't know where at the time. She even left my amulet behind. Personally, I figured she left it there as an apology for taking it away from me in the first place.

Ravensong and myself shouted down the others and we made haste to track the remaining orcs.

Several days later, we found them holed up in a abandoned silver mine. Apparently, they had killed whoever was working on the mine previously, as we saw veins of silver clearly visible in the mine several times.

Quite lovely, actually.

As we later found out, the orcs were ruled by some crazed orcish cleric (two ways of saying the same thing if I had ever heard one) and his two sons. One a mighty warrior and the other a mighty sorcerer.

Yes, I said a sorcerer.

I do realize how rare they are. I'm telling you he was a sorcerer. At least, we never found his spell book.

The warrior we defeated first. He was quite difficult. Mostly because he had the majority of the members of his tribe with him. Molistead's use of a spell rendered enough of them harmless that we managed to kill the lot with out too terribly much trouble.

After that, we found the sorcerer. He was hiding in a rather large cavern. After finding me first, he attempted to interrogate me. After some masterful obscufacation on my part-

Stop interrupting. I mean I kept him occupied whilst the others snuck up behind him and slaughtered the lot.

Anyway, then we found the lair of the leader of the tribe. A cleric of no small power. Quite honestly I think he might've killed several of us if it weren't for a small amount of poison administered just in the nick of time by myself.

I say this in all modesty, of course.

Ah, yes. After defeating the orc cleric, we spent a few hours gathering up what supplies we were interested in, hiding it, and striking off to town.

What can I say about the town?

Let's see. Depressing. Run down. Depressing. Afflicted by plague. Depressing. Most of the people were dead. Depressing. Under quarantine.

Did I mention depressing?

We arrived in town in the evening. We found out that the town was under quarantine due to a horrible plague that had started about a month ago. The undead creatures we found in the mine had similar sores to the plague victims.

I jumped to the (correct, as it turned out) conclusion that the plague was caused by the orc cleric in the mine. I also figured that the plague would quite likely stop now that we had killed the cleric.

Of course, I could not let such a prime opportunity to rescue a town (and make a lot of money in the process) go by.

We then went to the local temple to consult with their priest. After a few conversations, we got permission to leave the town, travel to the mine, and attempt to stop the plague.

So far, so good. Our plan was to go to the mines, wait a short while at the mine while we "cleared out the monsters and stopped the plague", and then return as heroes.

Would've worked, too.

Then I met Him.

*Sigh*

We had arrived with some material from the town that we wanted to sell. There happened to be a merchant who was stuck there due to the plague. We haggled a bit over the price. When that was agreed on, we also discussed converting the money we had into several large gems.

More portable, you know. Remember, I was on the run at the time.

Very funny. I wasn't on the run the ENTIRE time I was undertaking this grand quest.

Just most of it.

Anyway, we were introduced to a gem merchant. This merchant was... Excited to see me.

No, I didn't know why. Not yet, anyway.

We agreed on a price that was more or less fair to all concerned. The gem merchant also told the party that he had some other items we might find interesting. So we agreed to go to his shop and have a look at his wares.

This merchant apparently had an extremely wrong impression of me. You see, this mark on my back apparently marked me in some way that I didn't fully understand. It marked me as, er...

Well, I'm not entirely sure. One of the bad guys, I suppose is the best way of putting it.

After a brief discussion, in which he showed the party his wares and made several veiled hints to matters that nearly made Falahara blanch, the rest of the party left me alone with the man, it being obvious the gentleman wanted to discuss private matters with me alone.

Why did I allow this? I was hoping to get some more information from him. I've found it fairly easy to get information from people at times, and I was hoping this was one of them.

First, the merchant gave me a crossbow. One I had certainly never seen before. It was of incredible quality, and had a reservoir on it to put liquids on the bolts.

And I don't mean holy water.

In any case, the gentleman then mentioned something about nests-

Yes, those nests. My first hearing of them. I dearly wish it had been the last.

He mentioned something about nests and then gave me a-

a...

Sample... Of... What....

What was in store for me with my newfound 'powers'.

He showed me-

He showed me Hell.

No, I don't mean that in the metaphorical sense. At least, I don't think so.

I saw... I saw red rocks in all direction. Fires spewed from vents in the ground. And near me, I saw...

Something. A demon. A devil. I know not what.

I took my leave of this... Gentleman... Very quickly after that. With the intention that I travel as far away from this accursed place as soon as I possibly could.

The rest of my stay in this town was quite anticlimactic. We found a old drunkard guard who went along with us to “help”. What a laugh.

Anyway, he went along with us. We kept him drunk, and when he passed out, we went back to the mine, got the rest of the equipment, and woke the guard up, telling him about what a mighty victory against the orcs he had helped us with!

Why? It should be obvious. We had already saved the town. We needed 'proof' that we went in there and killed the orcs. The guard was perfect for it. With some coaching on our part, the guard was more than happy to take most of the credit for saving the town.

Why did I do that? Quite honestly, it wasn't my first plan. I originally wanted to go back to the town as heroes, lie on a nice bed-

Well you don't think I'd sleep, do you? I after all, would've been the hero!

But then I met that damned merchant. I was afraid to stay in that town a minute longer. So we left.

Quickly.

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.

Dwarfs.

I like dwarfs. They imbibe large quantiles of various alcoholic beverages, sing a lot, and mine lots of precious metals which they just love to bring into the city in bags that are just aching to be picked. I mean, the bags must be extremely heavy. They should thank me for helping me ease their burden by a few pounds. Do they? Rarely. Why, I remember one time-

Right.

So we wound up in this dwarven city by the name if Hilmdell. Biggest city we had been in a long time. I truly missed being in a city.

My only regret was that dwarven women tend to be bearded.

I was still a little jumpy over my recent involvement with things from beyond this mortal coil, so I decided to pay their temple a visit. I figured that they may be able to tell me some things about what's been happening to me.

Oh, they were able to, all right.

After a quick check, they informed me that they had a ceremony they could perform that would help reduce the influence of the CREATURE GROWING INSIDE ME and-

First I had heard of it, too.

Anyway, they could not destroy the creature, that had to be done at the monestary. At least they hoped the monks there could do it. What they could do was help reduce it's influence over me. The whole drinking blood kind of thing. They warned me it would require my “full and willing cooperation”.

Ha.

I hate those words. Always have. “Cooperate!” people say “Go for the common good!” people say. “Stop taking things that don't belong to you!”.

And so on and so on and so on.

This time I agreed.

I was in a bind! I really didn't know what to do. They tell me there's some creature inside me that's likely to kill me and certainly send my soul to some place I certainly don't want to be. What would you do?

So I did everything they told me to do.

You would think I would know better.

They started off by questioning me about everything that happened to me since I met up with the man who had cursed me. They then confiscated the gems and the crossbow the merchant gave me.

That was just the start.

Then, they cast a number of spells on me. That took several hours.

Then I was brought to a room. There were three pentagrams on the floor, each drawn inside the other. One copper, one silver, one gold. In the center of all three pentagrams was a altar. I was placed on the altar and shackled to it. (For my own protection, they told me. Ha.) They then began to cast several more spells.

This took about an hour. I then felt...

I then felt SOMETHING. Something inside me. Moving. It wasn't happy about what was happening to it.

Not at all.

I felt it scream.

Excuse me a moment.

After a while, they told me to meditate every night. They said that should help.

For a while.

Ha.

After that, I was released back into Himdell proper. After being cooped up in that temple for three days straight, all I wanted to do was to get very, very drunk and sleep.

Of course, it was not to be.

Molistead managed to meet up with some dwarf that was convinced our party was destined to slay some dragon. How he knew this wasn't exactly clear. He kept insisting that we would meet this dragon and slay it. It was foretold or somesuch nonsense.

Normally, I give such people a wide berth. After all, most of them spout such things in the hopes they'll get money off of you. Why, I've done it myself. I remember one-

Ahem. In any case, the dwarf managed to convince Molistead of his veracity. The fool even signed some sort of contract stating that when we found the dragon we'd give him some book or some such nonsense.

At least I thought it was nonsense at the time.

Shortly thereafter we left Hilmdell, still bound for the monestary. We had not gone very far when we met a monk on the road.

He had drawings of us. Including me. Quite a good likeness, too.

He were about to question him when we were beset upon by two panthers and a lycanthrope.

Oh, I knew what lycanthropes were. Beings that are cursed to change form. This one, into a panther.

They tried to get the drop on us. I managed to get the drop on them. We severely wounded all three of them.

Unfortunately they escaped.

I really, really wish they hadn't.

Friends.

Yes, I’m sure everybody who reads this knows the term. I wonder.

I certainly didn’t know what it meant.

Friends are people who will help you, just because they’re friends.

Friends are people who will risk their necks to save your own.

Oh, excuse me for stating what you consider to be the obvious. I’ll explain what I mean.

Up to this point I had been traveling with my erstwhile companions because… Well, because they captured me.

Yes, I could have run away at almost any time, but remember I had been accused of murdering a high priest. I quite honestly figured that if a few bounty hunters came after me, I could use the rest of my party as, well… Shields. Or at least a diversion before I got away.

Cold hearted? Perhaps. Again, they captured me because they thought I was the killer in the first place.

In any case, we finally reached the paths of the dead-

I’m getting to it-

Very well. I won’t go into a lot of detail on the paths of the dead itself. Suffice it to say that we encountered quite literally hosts of undead creatures. Including a rather large wave of skeletons.

Heh.

On the fourth day-

No, I won’t go into more detail on the wave of skeletons. You didn’t want to hear it. Besides, I don’t think words can quite do it justice.

On the fourth day we reached the monestary. My goal. The place where I was told I could rid myself of the curse upon me.

Unfortunately, I could not get in at first. Anuu and Molistead had to go on ahead to vouch for me. They returned saying I could go in.

I didn’t know what they had to swear to allow me entrance until later.

In any case, I spoke with the monks. They knew of my… Condition and did know how to repair the damage.

Basically, they gave me two choices.

The first was for me to go into some magical field that would draw the devil out. I would then have to kill it. Or it would kill me.

Assuming I made it, another devil would arrive in the monestary within a couple of days and try to kill everyone there.

They also informed me that they had preformed the ritual three times. The first time, the devil killed the host. The other two times, the devil that arrived later killed the former host and a good fraction of the people in the monestary.

Eh?

The second choice? Oh, that. My other option was they would kill me on the spot.

Needless to say, I picked the first choice.

That was where I began to understand what friendship is.

My companions GAVE me the more valuable items they had to help defeat the monster growing inside of me. Knowing there was a chance the items would be destroyed and they wouldn’t see them again.

The spellcasters in the party also prepared me as best they could by casting a multitude of spells on me to help in the fight. Heck, Molistead even cast a spell on me that would “increase the power of my personality, looks, and presence.” I absolutely fell in love with that spell. I wound up having him cast it on me almost every time we hit town. You wouldn’t BELIEVE the amount of ass I got with that spell. Heck, shortly after the battle I-

Oh, right.

So I was placed in a large chamber. After a few moments, I blue hemisphere sprang up, enclosing me. I was alone. But not for long.

With an incredible amount of pain, the devil sprang from my back. It was…

Excuse me while I refill my glass.

It was bat-like. It had a wingspan of almost five feet. It was bone-white and skeletal.

And very, very angry.

I defeated it.

But I know that I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for my friends.

Friends.

Two days after I destroyed the devil they came after me.

Eh?

I thought I told you already. The monks warned me that even if I somehow managed to destroy the devil that had been growing inside me, the devil who was lord over that devil would have a chance to seek retribution against me.

Not to mention that apparently the act of doing what I had done weakened the barrier separating the Paths of the Dead from the monestary.

In any case, Two… Things suddenly appeared.

Must I?

Very well. They were humanoid in that they walked on two legs and had two arms, albeit they had claws on the end.

Their faces…

They had the faces of… Well, of horses. Granted, horses without eyes and a hole for a mouth with no teeth, but horses.

The first thing they did was summon a small horde or lemurs to attack us.

We killed them all, though it was a very close thing. I myself was knocked unconscious and only through Annu’s healing did I survive.

Only after we defeated them did we find out that an entire undead army had besieged the monestary while we were fighting.

Fortunately, the defenders held them off, though it was a near thing for a while.

Have you ever seen hundreds of skeletons, all fused together in a ball, hurtling towards an all too fragile gate?

Pray you never do. I certainly wish I hadn’t.

The next day, the monks asked us to explore the dungeons below the monestary and destroy a vampire that had apparently taken it for his lair.

We did that without too much trouble.

Around this time, the monks were able to tell me something about the amulet I had been carrying around all this time.

No, I hadn’t put it on yet. Why? I never trusted magic and nobody was sure what it would exactly do.

In any case, apparently the amulets were a key that opened up some doorway to unimaginable power.

That’s an exact quote.

I said I could imagine quite a lot of power.

And they said “That’s why we said unimaginable.”

Intriguing, no?

The next day they told me.

When I asked for the monk's help, they told me that I would have to accept a geas as payment. I thought little about it, as I had more pressing matters at the time.

In any case, I was told a rather long and boring story which doesn't really matter here.

Oh fine. It had something about some devil lord being trapped here on this plane, specifically in the Paths of the Dead. He had something to do with the Paths of the Dead being the way it was.

The point of that was his prison appeared again on this plane approximately every 1,000 years. Of course, this 1,000 years happened on that day.

So I was asked to try to destroy the prison, hopefully destroying the devil lord in the process.

Ha.

In any case, I agreed. What choice did I have? Travelling to the spot took nearly a week. A week where the Paths of the Dead were strangely silent. No undead in sight.

The 'prison' was a temple. We entered and proceeded to lay waste to the place.

There were many glorious battles versus the undead. I won't go into the details of the hordes of undead I slew. After all, I must maintain my modesty, no?

The last battle is what was important, anyway.

The final battle in the Prison was a strange form of undead. Well, all undead are strange to me. I certainly am no expert on the subject. It was wielding a black longsword and took quite a long time before it was finally slain for good.

After the creature died, the exit collapsed. We found a scroll shortly thereafter.

Apparently, there was some creature that wanted Molistead dead. Dead enough to seal him along with the rest of us in a temple underground buried under tons of rock.

I did manage to find a way out. Every one of us had to touch a different wall in the room while speaking a word. "Honor."

By doing this, each of us were teleported elsewhere.

On the bright side, I was no longer trapped in a prison.

However, when I could see again, I discovered that the majority of my friends were missing.

The design of whoever set the trap, I'm sure.

It would be quite some time before I saw them again.

In an eyeblink, I was elsewhere.

Somewhere cold.

Very cold.

I quickly found out I was in the middle of a town somewhere in the frozen wastes in the far north. Only Annu and Falahara were with me.

Did I also mention it was in the middle of the night with no moon and there were screams very close by?

Well, there were.

I had barely enough time to gather my wits when a bonfire was lit and I was surrounded by large men pointing spears at me.

This was a situation I'm familiar with. Oh, not TOO familiar with, of course. I will admit there have been... Misunderstandings... Over the years that have involved guards surrounding me with weapons levelled-

Well of COURSE they were guards. Believe you me, I know guards the multiverse over.

Given the overwhelming odds and the fact I had no idea where I was, I surrendered.

The three of us were escorted by spear-point outside the town, which apparently was walled.

I forget the name of the town. Besides, I certainly wanted never to go there again. Oh, yes. I remember now. It was Myrthom.

In any case, leading the ruffians was a elderly woman. After casting a spell, she spoke to us-

She had to. We didn't speak the same language.

She told us that we were ordered on pain of death never to come this way again.

And then they left us. In the dark. In the cold. Alone.

We huddled together until the sun rose.

When it did, we decided to head south. We figured eventually we'd get warm if nothing else.

Besides, we didn't know where to go.

We spent four days trudging through the wilderness.

You know, I don't think I ever knew what cold was until that.

The magical cloak I was wearing staved off the worst of it, but the cold crept in as the hours progressed.

Hours where there was nothing to do but walk.

Step... Step... Step...

Under trees. Around hills. Over hills.

Step... Step... Step...

The monotony was broken only once.

Near nightfall on the second day, we were attacked by a dozen... Things. Lizard like creatures. Hoping for a meal, I suppose.

I managed to drive them off by killing a couple of them in quick succession while Falahara and Annu looked on admiringly. Fortunately, the creatures had no problems eating their own, so they grabbed the carcasses and moved off. We continued our journey.

On the fourth day we reached a mountain range. (It was the Galena mountains, I later found out)

We had finally found a pass and were travelling through the mountains when an elf ran up to us, bleeding quite heavilly.

He said "Come quick! Orcs are attacking the village!"

Then he dropped dead.

You know, I really HATE it when that happens.

You know, I really think that elves are stupid.

Okay, that’s not fair. But the elves that lived up in those horribly cold mountains must’ve been dropped on their head or something.

Almost immediately after we met the first elf, we found a bunch of orcs attacking a small number of elves. We joined in the fray and killed them.

You know, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone killed by stew before.

Eh?

Never mind.

Anyway, after we killed the orcs we talked with the elves. Apparently, the orcs we killed were only scouts for a much larger force.

More specifically, an army.

We traveled towards the army (see what I mean?) and got to a cave. The most notable feature of this cave was a small pool of water that apparently had magical qualities.

You see, it could be used to scry far away places. So we used it to determine if the rest of our erstwhile party were still alive.

They were. Unfortunately (for us) they were in someplace warm.

Which meant that they were nowhere near us.

At this point, the elves told us their story.

The orcs had been formed into a large army to sack a town. Specifically, the walled city we were so rudely ejected from a couple of weeks before. They were looking for something called the “Aegis Shield”.

A more complete description made it clear to us that this ‘shield’ was none other than the amulet that was given to he giants.

By this time I was getting really sick of the damned things.

In any case, the elves informed us that they were sworn to defend the city. With their lives, if need be.

They also couldn’t warn the town because, get this, the people of the town hated the elves and would kill them on sight.

Stupid.

So here was their great plan.

They wanted us to sneak into a city full of people that would kill us if they ever saw us again, steal the Aegis Shield, which we then found out was their most sacred possession, and escape with our lives.

I thought this was one of the stupidest plans I had ever heard (and I’ve heard some of Molistaad’s) and said so.

They then told us that one of the elves that lived in their village was a elf of great magical power who could teleport us back to our friends.

Just take a guess as to what the price was.

Humph. Maybe they weren’t so stupid after all.

To confirm the deal, we had to travel to the elven encampment.

This took two days.

One thing of importance happened during that time.

Granted, at the time I didn’t think it was very important.

While I slept, I had a rather strange dream. At least I thought it was a dream.

I saw a featureless plain.

Annu and Falahara were with me.

Facing me was a woman. A cleric of Shar –

Yes, THAT cleric of Shar. Annu had mentioned her a few days ago when they had first met, but I discounted it.

She demanded that we give her the amulet.

A brief fight ensued. She escaped and we awoke.

What made that fight so interesting? Well, that damnable amulet that I had been carrying around since the priest of Mystra gave it to me was around my neck when the 'dream' started.

My attempts to remove it were in vain.

The second thing was that I was apparently invisible to the cleric. I didn't quite realize it at the time, as I was, er... concerned with asking the cleric a few questions.

I think I thought she was ignoring me. I don't entirely remember.

In any case, we awoke. As I was a touch upset about someone entering my dreams, when Annu remarked that "None of this would've happened if you had given me the amulet" I gave it to her.

I thought that I was rid of the thing.

Not that it mattered. She gave it back to me a day later.

Should've known it wasn't that easy.

At the end, we came to the encampment, which seemed to consist of several tents.

The mage appeared nice enough. He offered to make us some magic items in return for our coorporation.

Basically, as I outlined before, he wanted us to sneak into the city, steal the Aegis Shield, and bring it back. He would be waiting just outside the anti-magic field-

I never mentioned that?

Oh. For some reason the city was in the middle of a rather large.. er... area of "Dead Magic". Nothing magical worked inside the city proper.

Anyway, the mage would be waiting outside the dead magic area and would teleport us all to safety.

He also told us that they had a contact in the city, and how we could meet her.

So, a relatively quick teleportation later, myself and Falahara were at the edge of the dead zone, waiting in a clearing where their contact would show up.

The elven contact happened to be the same woman who told us that she'd kill us if we ever saw her again.

Of course.

She told us where the Aegis Shield was and informed us that there was absolutely no way we'd manage to get to it and escape. She also told us what would happen to us when we were captured.

That woman certainly had a vivid vocabulary.

She was also as crazy as a gibbering mouther.

That evening, we snuck into the city. Of course, the woman had warned the rest of the city about our arrival. We expected that. The building where the Aegis Shield was was heavily guarded. We expected that also.

What we didn't expect was three different Aegis Shields in the room.

And we certainly didn't expect that crazy lady to show up with a FOURTH shield and stab her guards.

We managed to get all four shields and escape the city, with I expect the entire guard force and half the militia at our heels.

The elves were elated.

The fact that we had three exact copies of the Aegis Shield meant that it would be relatively easy to fool the orc army into believing that the shield was elsewhere.

Of course, there was the slight matter that now myself and my friends were now sworn enemies of the city we had just robbed, but that didn't concern the elves overmuch.

The elven mage, after giving us the items we asked him to make, told us he would be willing to teleport us to the location where the rest of our party was.

We discovered the limitations of his skills at that time.

After the third unsuccessful attempt at teleportation, we gave up and decided to try to track down the rest of our companions on our own.

Besides, the mage teleported us somewhere warm. Always a good thing as Falahara and Annu regularly went about wearing almost nothing.

A quick search of the outlying area showed that there was a mountain several days away and a river, also several days away in the opposite direction. Finally, there was a cloud of smoke in a third direction. It looked like something was burning.

A previous attempt at going towards the mountain proved that there were apparently a large amount of kobolds there, so we headed towards the smoke, figuring that our companions probably went that way. Reasoning that wherever Bellum went, something was likely to get burned down. Or at the very least destroyed.

A reached the smoke at dusk. It appeared to be a small town, now ruined.

No sign of our friends, however.

So we settled down for the night.

Around midnight, a couple of what we thought were dwarves approached our camp. They only spoke dwarvish, so the only person who could understand them was Annu, as she had a device that could understand spoken languages. However, as the device didn't allow you to speak the language, just understand it, this led to some interesting dialog.

In short, all their friends had been captured and they needed our help.

We were tired, but agreed. We were led into a cave. Inside, there was a ettin.

Nasty, brutish fellow, who's personality was not helped by the fact that he happened to be dead.

After killing him, we discovered we had been duped. Apparently the 'dwarves' weren't dwarves after all. They were some kind of wierd furry humanoid with large ears.

Apparently a number of their fellows had been captured by the ettin and they needed our help to get them out.

Funny, if they'd asked we probably would've helped them.

While we were searching the cave for treasure, we were accosted by a rather strange creature. It had three arms, three eyes, three legs, and ate metal.

Yes, really.

I'm not entirely sure it wanted us dead. Personally I just think it wanted to eat most of our stuff. However, Falahara managed to provoke it so we killed it.

By this time dawn was breaking. Annu rested to regain her spells and discovered that Mystra had blessed her with a new spell. One that would allow her to contact our friends.

So we did. Specifically, we told them in general terms were we were, asked them where they were, and told them we'd contact them again tomorrow.

Unfortunately, we contacted Molistead, so the response was less than helpful.

So we decided to explore the town.

We rapidly found out that the word 'town' was stretching the term a bit. It consisted of four buildings, all completely destroyed, a lot of kobolds, all dead, many missing ears and teeth-

As a matter of fact, that did confirm the fact that our friends had been there.

Beyond that, the only other thing in the town were two gargoyles. Unfortunately, they were alive and attacked us. We slew them fairly quickly.

At this point, a discussion ensued.

I had been carrying the amulet around since before I met the rest of our earstwhile band. I had never touched it with my bare skin even.

I generally don't trust magic. It can turn around and bite you very easily.

Besides which, I was given the amulet by someone who was dying. For all I knew, the amulet was cursed to give it's owner a horrible death.

And there was the matter of it's properties to consider.

Given it was supposed to open the gateway to uniminagible power or something like that worried me.

You see, I had always considered myself to be a modest man-

Quit snickering.

I never wanted to do anything spectacular with my life. I was quite content living where I was living, making money where I could, and generally having a good life.

Then I met Falahara and the rest and my life took a decidedly different course.

At this point, I decided it was pointless to continue to try to dodge Fate and put the amulet on.

So I did.

I soon enough figured out part of it's power when Malaks' henchman showed up.

Malak? He was the gentleman responsible for the death of the high priest of Mystra all those months ago. At the time, when I was first attacked by the assasins, we captured one and questioned him. He told us who sent them, but that was all.

Anyway, Malak sent us a message saying that he knew where we were, and to surrender the amulet and die.

Note I didn't say 'surrender the amulet OR die'.

It's henchman was... Well, we never figured that out. Whatever it was it was invisible.

We slew it. Barely. I can say in all modesty that we probably wouldn't have if I hadn't put on the amulet.

So I began to have an idea of what it could do.

I worried about that because I knew that with great power came great responsibility. A quality I tend to lack at times.

What I forgot was that great power comes with a price.

We finally met up with the rest of our companions early the next day. I must confess I was overjoyed to see Molistead unhurt.

I was slightly less overjoyed when I asked him to recount his adventures after we got seperated. After him saying "Did I mention the fish people?" five times in a row I gave up.

Took most of a week before I finally got the whole story out of them.

The other interesting thing was a new companion of theirs, Boudica.

I never really got to know her too well. She kept to herself and her animal companions. A snake and a boar. After the boar nearly bit me once I tended to leave them alone.

We traveled for most of a day to a 'portal' -

It took me a solid hour just to get THAT amount of information from them. All I knew was that we were travelling towards a portal. Why, I had no idea.

Sometime before we reached the portal, we were ambushed by a bunch of halflings. Halflings that were quite skilled in the ways of ambush.

Most beings that skilled are mostly interested in relieving a party of their valuables and retiring. This group, however, was more interested in our lives. Most specifically, Molistead's.

Falahara quite literally saved Molistead's life several times during that battle. She had recently learned a new ability that allowed her to take a blow meant for someone else. Quite honestly I think it's the only thing that kept him alive.

We meant to capture one of them and interrogate him, but unfortunately we killed them all first. However, Annu recently learned a spell that allowed her to communicate with the recently deceased.

Ick.

So she did.

The only answer she got out of the still-cooling corpse was the name of their master.

Namon’Shoon. That's the name of the demon that sent the masked gentleman to kill Molistead. He still was to meet us in Myth Drannor but apparently the demon got tired of waiting and sent another bunch of assassins to kill him.

Humph.

Early the next morning, we finally found the portal and walked through it.

We wound up in a city.

At last! A city! Real food! Real beds!

*sigh*

And Raymond. Ah, Raymond.

He was a dwarven wizard of no small skill. He wound up making quite a lot of items for us.

He also happened to be a sage. I remember asking him about the amulets. He knew nothing.

So what happened in the city? Let me refill my glass and I'll tell you.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. The city.

Rybath was the first city I had been in for any length of time and I fully intended to make the most of it.

So of course it didn't happen. To be fair, I did make the most of it the next time I was in Rybath-

Ah, yes. Jumping ahead of myself again.

We arrived in Rybath through a portal which led us almost immediately to Raymond, a dwarven wizard of no small skill. After a brief conversation we decided that we were rather tired and were taken upstairs to an Inn Raymond apparently owned. I almost immediately passed out the minute I got to my room.

The next morning, Raymond met up with us at breakfast. After some information about Kissenth (the dragon we were 'fated' to kill) and some negotiations involving some items we had found, he left to go study his tomes and find the answers to a few questions we had asked him.

Most of the party left shortly thereafter-

Why? Well, Raymond agreed to create some kind of dragon-slaying weapon for Bellum. You'd think he had more than enough to satisfy him. Anyway, the creation of such a device required some rather unusual ingredients. Like a xorn's heart and a wyvern's tail. Fortunately, I had a xorn's heart-

That was the three-armed creature that tried to eat all our metals.

Anyway, we didn't have a wyvern's tail. Several members of the party decided to go traipsing off through a swamp to find a couple. I declined as I had better things to do than slog through a leech-infested swamp looking for a winged creature that wanted to eat me. And I said so.

While Falahara, Annu, Molistead and myself were finishing our breakfast; we overheard a couple of guards talking about an overly large panther. Specifically one that took several arrows without slowing. Apparently a panther charged the city walls the previous evening, got shot several times with arrows, than ran back into the woods.

This caused Falahara to prick up her ears. And boy, can she do that. She decided that the werepanthers that we had met a month or so ago were here and that we needed to go investigate.

The whole thing rang false to me and I said so, but I was ignored. So the four of us left town where the panther had been. Shortly thereafter, we found a note. A note addressed to Falahara.

She gave me a rough translation that the were-panther we met two months ago had tracked us down and accused Falahara of being a were-panther. He also said he wanted to meet that evening in the graveyard.

The whole thing reeked of being a trap and I said so. Repeatedly. The entire day and throughout the trip to the graveyard. I was ignored the whole time.

Falahara went alone to meet with this Jaga while the rest of us hid and watched. We were not able to hear the conversation, but Falahara walked away angry. She told me that she'd tell me the details once we reached town.

Of course, the minute we walked back into town we were immediately detained by the city guard and interrogated. It seems that the note had been found and was replanted by the guard to find evidence of lycanthropes. And since we had found it and acted on the note we were assumed to be in league with the lycanthropes.

My interrogation lasted an hour or so. We were all released eventually, with a stern warning that we were being watched.

After being released, Falahara finally relayed what had transpired between her and Jaga. Jaga apparently was a bounty hunter who had been hired to bring our heads in. Falahara told him that we would double his fee if he would leave us alone, and agreed to meet us in three nights to take his payment.

This sounded like another trap to me, and I said so. Again.

Nobody ever listens to me.

As it was quite late in the evening, what with going on fruitless errands to the graveyard and being interrogated by a bunch of jack-booted thugs, we decided to go back to the inn and go to sleep.

Come to think of it, I think the guards ordered us to do something like that.

Anyway, while I was sleeping the sleep of the just, I was rudely awoken by a loud banging in the room next to ours. Where Molistead and Annu were staying.

I immediately jumped up, grabbed my rapier and charged out the door. Falahara and I broke the door down, and I jumped into the room screaming "DROP YOUR WEAPONS!"

I'd better explain that. A few weeks previous, I had purchased a hat which allowed me to change my appearance. I altered my apperance so that I looked like a six-foot tall knight in black armor.

Man, I loved that hat.

Fortunately, it startled the attackers enough that we were able to kill several of them before they tried to get away. The attackers, a cleric of Shar and her henchmen, tried to get out the way they came in. Which appeared to involve some magical gateway of sorts. Since that didn't work, they ran back out the door and tried to get to the street.

It very nearly worked. I went after the priestess of Shar and managed to get a few good hits in before she cast a spell which struck me blind.

That in and of itself wasn't quite enough to incompacaitate me, but a few seconds later I heard a voice in my head.

It said "Rejoin the Master".

I think I blacked out. Probably from the priestess hitting me when I couldn't see.

While I was unconscious, I had a very disturbing dream. Someone claiming to be my father. along with a host of creatures, were demanding that I rejoin the demon lord I had been attempting to spurn the past few months. They said to go to the graveyard to recieve it's favor.

I awoke shortly thereafter. The enemies had been dispatched, and the inn was crawling with members of the city guard, who had been alerted by Molistead throwing fireballs all over the place. That and filling a street for a full block in either direction with enough webs to choke a roc.

I quickly explained my problem to my companions, and we all agreed that we needed to do something about the demon. Soon.

So we traveled back to the graveyard. The four of us were attacked by another ... thing.

It had bat wings and a body I won't attempt to describe. Whatever creature my soul had been pledged to, it certainly had a variety of minions at it's disposal.

The fight was extremely difficult, mostly due to it's ability to create large walls of ice. Molistead's ability to make nearly anything fly proved quite useful. Quite honestly, I'm not sure if we could have defeated it otherwise.

I also remember it was powerful enough that I could barely scratch it with my rapier. It really worried me about what I'd meet the next time this demon lord sent another one of it's minions.

Never occured to me the next time I'd go to the demon lord and fight it on it's own territory.

The city guards trusted us a little more after that incident with the demon.

The guards had been tailing us ever since we were interrogated, making sure we suddenly didn't transform into werebadgers or something like that.

After watching us kill a demon, they concluded that we might not be members of this Black Blood organization.

Yay for our side.

They allowed us to go to the next meeting and attempt to kill Jaga. They told us that they would be watching the battle but they could 'spare no resources to help us'.

Typical.

So we rested for the next two days. Quite honestly, I don't remember much about it. I was still rather upset with my newest brush with the demonic forces.

Finally, on the third evening, we met with Jaga and tried to kick his butt.

Note I said 'tried'.

We assumed that he'd be alone, or at worst have another werepanther along with him as backup.

Stupid. We should've known better.

Instead, he had an entire pack of wolves at his disposal.

The battle was brief. Molistead fell almost immediately. It turned out that the wolves weren't ordinary wolves-

No, they weren't lycanthropes. Almost as bad though. These wolves had the ability to breathe blasts of bitterly cold air and ice at people. One caught Molistead full in the chest.

Annu and Falahara rushed to save him. I tried to attack Jaga, but he drank a potion and started to fly away.

Trying to save Molistead was a noble goal, but in this case a unsound tatical move. The wolves ganged up on Annu and she fell next.

With her down, they transfered their attention to Falahara.

I fully expected them to take her down in a few moments, then turn their tender attentions to me. Falahara's good, but I didn't think she could take down an entire pack of wolves by herself, even with me helping.

I quite honestly expected to die.

But we were saved from a most unlikely source.

Garth showed up.

Garth was the dog-like creature that was originally charged with commending my soul to hell. And avenge the death of the high priest of Mystra all those months ago. Apparently, Garth was still watching over me, because he saved all our lives.

He appeared, and in an eyeblink Molistead, Annu, and Garth were gone. A few seconds later, he reappeared and whisked us away.

We appeared back in the Temple back at the Paths of the Dead. Where I killed that demon that had been living inside me.

You think I'm obsessed about demons? Heh. Let's just say they colored a lot of my views during that stage of my life.

In any case, Garth left us there. I stayed with Molistead and Annu while the clerics tended to all of our wounds. Falahara immediately went to speak with Talingar, the head of the order. A nice guy who happened to have rather large wings on his back.

What did Falahara speak with Talingar about? Ask her.

In any case, a couple of hours later Talingar teleported us back to Rybath. The next day the rest of my companions arrived back in town, bearing a rather bloody wyvern's tail.

About a week later, we set off to kill a dragon.

While on route to our date with destiny with Kissenth, I had a rather strange dream.

Well, it probably wasn't a dream.

Anyway, it started with four ... beings arguing. Over me.

I think they were gods.

I'm serious. All too serious.

One was a man, dressed all in black. One was a breathtakingly beautiful woman. The third was a... Thing. A demon. No doubt the thing that had laid claim to my soul after I killed that cultist.

They were engaged in a lively discussion over my soul in a way that reminded me of old ladies haggling over a piece of bread. During the discussion a small dragon with butterfly wings-

Yes, it did. I remember it all too well. And I've been trying to forget about it for quite some time.

Anyway, a small dragon with butterfly wings landed on my shoulder and chortled about the other three beings. Shortly after that, another woman came up to me and told me I needed to talk to her. I went along (not that I had a choice) and was taken somewhere else.

I was asked to tell everything I knew about Garth.

What did I say?

Well, I told the truth, as I saw it. I will admit that I am not terribly fond of beings from other planes. To say that their actions are different would be to miss a perfect opportunity to use the word 'incomprehensible'. Admittedly, I'll probably wind up going to one of them if I die, but I fully intend on putting that day off as long as possible. Besides, when I get there I'm fairly certain things will make a little more sense.

In any case, I informed them that Garth was a being that trusted me when he had ever reason not to trust me, helped me when he had no reason to help me, and saved my life from that were-panther.

I was then told I could request a boon. The butterfly-winged dragon suggested that I 'ask that the location of the sword be given unto you'. So I did. After a lot of prompting. Prompting in the sense that I was fairly certain the thing wouldn't have shut up unless I said it. The dragon also told me that the only way to get my soul back would be to destroy this sword. And that the only one that could destroy a sword would be a priest of the 'Wandering God'.

In another eyeblink, I was elsewhere. Somewhere dark. Somewhere hot. Somewhere that stank of brimstone.

Hell? I don't know. Possibly. Probably. I sincerely hope never to find out for certain.

On the bright side, the dragon was gone. And more importantly, my friends were with me again.

We walked for some time, met a demon that was terribly bad at riddles, and eventually came across a rather large tower that was floating over a pit of approximately a mile in diameter.

After a long discussion with a door-

Don't ask.

We fought many, many battles. Several of my friends died reaching the top of the tower. At the top of the tower, we met another demon and several of it's minions. The rest of my friends died in that battle. I very nearly did myself.

Fortunately, a poisoned crossbow bolt brought down the last vile creature, some cross between an ape and a insect of some kind.

But not before it killed Falahara.

I remember wishing it had killed me instead.

So I was there, on the top of a tower in the middle of Hell, looking down at the remains of my friends and the demons that had killed them.

I had no idea what to do next. There were undoubtedly more enemies in the tower, and I was in no shape to outfight anything at this point. And even if I made it out, where would I go?

The sword that held my soul rested on a table in the room.

I tried to destroy it myself, but was unable to.

Finally in frustration I picked it up, intending to hurl the damned thing into the pit in which the tower was hovering. Then quite probably hurl myself in after it.

Then I woke up.

I back in the valley near the dragon's cave. I was unwounded. My friends had no recollection of the events I had experienced. I thought it was just a dream.

I was relieved.

Then I found the sword lying in my bag.

Xon, dragon-slayer!

Well, not really.

As I had mentioned earlier, we were apparently fated to kill this Kissenth. A rather large white dragon which had been ravaging this particular part of the countryside for the past hundred years or so.

After many travails, most of which I've already mentioned to you, we finally reached the mountain where the dragon resided.

The pathway to the mountain was guarded by twenty or so werewolves. I must confess to being very impressed by Dante's ability to leap forty or fifty feet without effort. In any case we dispatched them rather quickly.

We then started to explore the mountain. The dragon had a rather large series of caves at it's disposal. To be expected, really. The caves were also extremely cold and ice-covered.

During our exploration of the cave, we found... Something. A cross between a medusa and a dragon, I think. I think it was Kissenth's child. We killed it with some trouble.

We finally found the dragon in a large open cave deep inside the mountain. It was hiding inside a frozen lake. We were under the effects of a fly spell at the time, so as we flew over the lake it burst out. I remember it flew up right next to me. I remember looking into it's eyes as it breathed a blast of ice directly at me.

Quite honestly, I'm amazed I survived.

The rest of the battle was glorious, but admittedly brief. I realized I would do more damage throwing fireballs at it from afar than I would be trying to hit it from up close. Fortunately, I still had a few fireballs from that necklace. I used them all trying to help bring the dragon down.

Finally, the dragon fell.

We spent most of the rest of the day cataloging the treasure we had found and celebrating.

Unfortunately, our celebarations were short lived.

The next morning, we awoke, gathered our belongings, and prepared to set out. Then a discussion ensued.

It appears that Molistaead had a problem.

Several months previous, we were met by some gentleman who apparently was hired to kill Molistead. Why he wanted to kill him, I had no idea. Anyway, he said that to make the killing more 'sporting', he would give us three months. At the end of three months, we were to meet him in Myth Drannor. Otherwise, he would kill Molistead in his sleep.

Molistead informed us that we were down to the final twenty one days before he had to show up in Myth Drannor. A place that, quite frankly, I had no desire to visit. And was almost a thousand miles away.

So after some discussion, we figured out a way to make it back to Rybath, the town where Raymond was, in about three days or so. We wanted to go back there partly because it was on the way but mainly to spend some of our gold.

We were just about to leave the dragon's cave when we met... Him.

"Him" was a rather large fellow, about dressed in bear skins. He said something about Boudica I didn't quite catch, then charged into battle. I managed to get a few good hits in before he cast some kind of spell and darkness enveloped the area.

I really hate it when people do that.

The darkness spell was broken relatively quickly, but he did it again. Immediately afterwards, he teleported away.

It took several minutes for the darkness spell to expire. In that time we found out that Boudica had been blinded by Him. Our attempts to cure it failed. So we spent an hour trying to chase the guy down, to no avail.

We finally decided that it was unlikely we were going to catch him without a rather long and difficult chase, and he was going in the wrong direction. So Molistead conjured up some horses and we made all haste for the town, three days away.

I was quite impressed by Molistead's skills in magic by this point. The steeds he created had the ability to travel three or four times faster than a man, and snow and rocks didn't bother them in the slightest. We made excellent speed.

We left Dante behind, as he insisted he'd catch up with us.

That, unfortunately, took a lot longer than we anticipated.

After almost nine hours of riding, we came upon a rather well orchestrated trap.

It seems that there were a fair number of people that had heard about our quest to kill the dragon and wanted our treasure. A rather large group of orcs, with what apparently was a lot of preparation, ambushed us and demanded our treasure.

Figuring they were only orcs and not much of a threat, I charged ahead and attempted to best the leader in hand to hand combat.

I very nearly lost my life for that arrogance. I saw one orc and figured there were three or four waiting in the bushes somewhere. I reasoned that if I could kill the leader quickly the rest would run.

However, they had a small army at their disposal. From a full 30 orcs wielding spears to another 10 with longbows with the five or six wizards and clerics that were invisible and waiting, I got myself in over my head very quickly. I quite possibly would've died if it hadn't been for Dante.

Unfortunately, the rest of my companions couldn't help. Falahara quickly got herself surrounded by orcs. Annu and Molistead were targeted by the archers and had their own problems. But I was talking about Dante.

Dante appeared in a flash of light over the battlefield. Normally, that would be a problem, but somehow he had grown wings.

I guess he could do that.

Anyway, he charged the orc leader I was currently in combat with. Between the two of us we managed to take him down, but it was a very near thing. You see, apparently the orcs had cast a number of spells on the leader, to increase his health, quickness, and so on.

He was pretty bloody hard to hit, I can tell you that.

Come to think of it, we never actually did kill the leader, I don't think. The leader finally ran, and Dante chased after it. We didn't see him again for nearly a week.

Which brings me to... Binian.

Self-righteous little pest.

Binian was a rather short fellow with a big nose. We met him at nearly the same time we met the orcs. I thought he was in league with the orcs for a while.

He stopped us and asked about me. He consulted a scroll a lot-

Well... When I say "a lot" I really mean "constantly".

In any case, he was apparently looking for me. Something partly to do with some staff he had found and mostly because that damned scroll said I'd be there.

I didn't really see what he did during the battle. He was with Molistead and Annu, and most of the battle they were obscured by some cloud. Besides, I had my hands quite full during the battle trying to keep myself alive.

Anyway, he consulted that scroll again-

Why do I keep bringing it up? Well, this scroll of his apparently had the ability to show the future. I am a firm believer that everyone makes their own fate, and no higher power, no deity, and certainly no damned SCROLL is going to tell me what to do.

I was about to tell him in no uncertain terms to go stuff himself when he happened to mention he was a cleric of the Wandering God.

The same cleric of the Wandering God that was going to destroy that sword. The same one that was going to save my soul.

Figures.

So I told him that he could have my sword if he never mentioned the scroll in my presence again.

Should've known I'd regret that.