Dear Diary,
I’ve decided to keep you because I’ve been up north for far longer than I ever intended when I left to investigate the rumors of war and ancient evil. There’s going to be a long boring debriefing when I get home so I’d rather just put it all down in you and then I can hand you over to them and let them read it themselves.
This week was actually the closest I’ve been to home since I left. Since you haven’t existed until now I’ll catch you up a bit on what we were doing.
So, this is kinda embarrassing, but we let a black dragon loose in the sunken lands when we were up there last. We thought it was great, he ate a bunch of gross squid head guys and their giant pet brain, so we thought, cool, thanks dragon. But now he’s ravaging the countryside and some of my companions are worried that their families will get eaten or something. Sometimes I wish mine would, but that’s something for later.
When we were in the capitol two weeks or so ago the nice barbarian guy (yeeowch, hot!) brought us a book about dragons that seemed to suggest we would need a weapon forged specifically for the purpose of slaying them to stand a chance. So we asked what’s her name at the sages guild and she said maybe the disciples of Eryt in Abol would be able to use their power to see where we might find a big ass hammer made by giants. Ugh, I bet it stinks just like they do.
We spoke with the lady about what she might do to leverage the dragon attacks to hold back the breaking of war, then we got ourselves on our way to Abol. Diary, you’ll never believe it, but I finally got my pony!!
The trip to Abol was pretty boring, but I got to make great friends with my pony. His name was Herman Papaloma Virus and he had the cutest little black spot on his flank. But then we got to Abol.
I didn’t like it at all. All the people stared at me like I was some kind of freak. Most of them didn’t even have beards, they’re the freaks! Jerks. And then, and then
And then I had to sell my pony. It was the saddest day of my life. But they said we had to go into the endless desert or something and mr. hpv wouldn’t be able to make it. I didn’t want him to die, so I sold him and I swore to him I would buy him back when we were done in the desert.
So let me back up diary, I’m sorry I got all sad there for a minute. When we got to Abol I wanted to go to the church of Anadea so I could make my obeisances and drop off some gold for their animal shelter like I always do, but apparently it’s frowned on here to worship the Sun Mistress. Ugh, these people are the worst. I’m kinda excited to be so close to Anadea here to be honest with you Diary.
She’s so close to the earth out here and her warmth is almost overwhelming. When I finally heard we were going into the desert I couldn’t wait.
Ok, so let me back up again. The bald headed guys by the pond with the creepy kid with the dirty eye. I felt like he could see my third layer of smalls through my chainmail and my leathers and my other two layers of smalls when he looked at me with it.
So after we found out that these people are heathens against Anadea and her light we wandered over to the most charming market place and met a funny little fruitmonger with the juciest pears ever. Yay pears! I was hanging out with Strude (omg, so steamy) and I guess we were looking for the disciples of Eryt. So we shared pears and we got some new duds for the desert. It took a while to find me some that would fit and then when we did the racist clothier didn’t wanna sell them to me so I almost had to get all up in his face, but then Strude was all like “Hey dude, sell the clothes to my obese daughter, she has a glandular condition. Dick.” And then the guy totally did.
Dang, this is getting so long, I don’t want to use you all up with the first entry diary. Sorry, I hope it doesn’t hurt you when I write in you.
So we found the bald guys sitting around a big long pool that people were swimming in but I wasn’t allowed to go in because I was a dwarf which is totally racist and I’m really starting to think that it’s so hot here because Anadea is keeping a close eye on these jerks in case they try something really bad.
The little gross kid told us he had been expecting us and that we were going to have to go even further south into the desert to find something made by giants (gross) so he could touch it up and see where the hammer they made for dragon smashing is. I guess it’s up in the swamp somewhere, probably extra filthy by now.
Anyway, we were going to have to through the desert to some place called the tomb of the giants, and so we did that.
We had to get some gross, smelly camels for the trip through Anadea-touched lands. Mine had a little ladder on it so I could get on. That was kinda cool I guess. And I couldn’t wait to spend some time getting closer to Anadea. We were going with some guy that Brock and Francis found who apparently is pretty good. He scared off the guide we found, so he must be good, but he’s way older and uglier.
Diary, I have to admit, after four days in the desert I was not really that happy about being so close to Anadea anymore. I prayed and prayed but it was really rough travel. I think Anadea was testing me to see if I was worthy to be so close to her brilliance. We had to slow down halfway through or I think I might not have made it.
We finally got to the tomb and it was really huge. It stank like giants and filthy giant stuff. We were all kinda tired so we rested for a few days outside, but the greedy old guide demanded more gold, and diary, I had to pay like twice as much as everyone else because “You’re the most tired Rumpish.” Francis and Brock are so mean. They could at least learn my name. I feel dirty every time I have to heal them. Burning stuff is way more fun anyway.
The first part of the tomb was a huge room with pillars running in two rows off into the darkness. I blessed one of my rocks-from-the-ground with Anadea’s presence and her light filled the darkness. At the far end of the room we saw something awesome.
Diary, you know those ceiling bugs that have faces on both sides and a million little feet? It was like one of those, but it had a face like a lizard kinda thing and all of it’s legs were like people’s legs. Also it was huge! It was scaly and wriggly and not very happy that we were in its house. Brock and Strude rushed in as always and it was on baby!
There was one point that got pretty bald where Brock was all twisted up in the thing’s body and it was chawing on his leg parts, but I got to send it some fire and Strude’s big old sword and rippling muscles carried us through.
The next room in the tomb was totally weird. There was a massive pillar in the center of the room with a huge hour glass suspended above it. It looked pretty ominous, but there was a lever on the pillar that flipped the glass when pulled. There were also a bunch of dead dudes hanging out, so I figured I’d ask them what happened to them.
Sad, they were super boring. “Boo hoo, we ran out of supplies, we just kept pulling the lever and we couldn’t get out.” Lame, they were no help at all. So eventually we said forget this noise and we let the sand run out. There were a bunch of weird holes in the ceiling and I was pretty sure the whole thing was gonna fall down on us, so I said everyone should stand under one of the holes. But the whole trap was just a stupid mind game and when the sand ran out all the doors opened and we went into the next room.
This room looked really similar, but the big pillar in the center had two levers on it. The ceiling had the same weird holes in it. Like usual my boys just ran in and yanked the levers. When Strude pulled one all the doors closed and the whole place started filling with sand! We were kinda worried, but it turned out that the second lever opened the door back the way we came. So we thought, “Hey, the last trap was solved when we just didn’t do squat, let’s try that again.” So we did and guess what Diary? It totally worked. We scrambled up the pillar in the center and waited for the sand. Right about when it got up to our level the pillar lifted up and all the sand started draining into the floor.
Take that temple, we’re wise to your tricks! It was awesome Diary, trust me. So we headed into the next room which turned out to be the last. Not a lot to say about this one, there was a pillar in the middle like the last two, but this pillar had a big ol’ chest up on it. Score!
Before we could scramble up and open it, two giant skeletons hopped up out of the sand and tried to smoosh us! Those nasty guys were pretty scary. I called on Anadea to fill them with her light. It’s terrifying to undead of all sorts, but I guess maybe I didn’t stand up well enough to her Ordeal because it didn’t seem to do anything. Good thing she also showed me how to make my own light. Old bones don’t burn so well, but it helped. Strude and Brock chopped them up, but they got smacked a few good ones too. By now I was really feeling the strain between Anadea and me and it was good that Francis knows a healing song or two because we were pretty well beaten up by the time we brought the skeletons down.
But we did it Diary! We killed those giants again and then we took their stuff right out of there. Inside the chest there were six huge giant coins. I took three and I think Francis took the other three. They’re actually beautiful, in a way. I think they’ll probably be just the thing for that freaky bald kid to lead us to a dragon squishing weapon so we can go clean up our mess up north.
Ok Diary. I know this has been quite a long introduction and I didn’t really let you say your piece, but I’m glad that we met. I’m going to bed now but I’ll be sure to tell you all about the trip back to Abol and how we’re supposed to find whatever it is it turns out we’re looking for. I’ll ask Anadea what she thinks about what we’re doing, but when she’s this close I think her voice might be too loud to understand.