Dani had spent half the night trying to get into the trunk at the foot of the pit boss’ bed while the rest of us were sleeping.   She nudged me awake early the next morning. I followed her slowly back to the curtained chamber. Staring down groggily at the trunk, I knew I could probably have it open in a matter of seconds but I did not relish the idea of finding something even worse than the poison needle.  She vowed that she would get the trunk open by herself, and when she did, I wouldn’t get any of the treasure she might find.  I wished he luck and went to look for Apemantus.

He had slept with one eye open, keeping watch over the bugbear, so he had been awake when Regdar came back from securing and cataloging the weapons we had found in the armory.  Iva was the one on watch at that time and Apemantus overheard him telling Regdar that he felt I had been behaving like an ally of the Bloody Blades but he still thought I had some kind of agenda.  Apemantus also gave me the details of his conversation with Begdemagus.  What it came down to was that the fire mage didn’t trust me but he would follow Regdar’s lead…for now.

I knew that sooner rather than later I was going to have to tell them at least part of my story.  My dilemma was:  How much should I tell them?  My fear was that if Regdar knew (or guessed) the power associated with the statue of Kord, he would never let me take it back to the Temple.  He would want to keep it for his army.  Perhaps I could tell them my mission was simply to capture Numbilung and take him (dead or alive) back to the Temple.

We began to hear noises coming from the pit boss’ chamber.  Apparently Dani had gotten the chest open and the rest of the crew was divvying up the spoils. Since I knew Dani was sure to keep her word that I would not share in said spoils, I decided to take a crack at unlocking the door on the other side of the forge.

“I need a word with you Revlis.”

I turned around from the door startled. It seemed as if Regdar had materialized out of thin air.

“I am given to understand that your apprentice…Apemantus?  And you have some misgivings about killing the bugbear on the other side of the room.”

“I assure you Captain that we have no aversion to killing bugbears in general.  It’s just that I have a sense that this bugbear is somehow special.  It hasn’t tried to attack us in any way, even after sustaining multiple attacks from us. I think there’s more than a possibility that it’s under the same enchantment as these slaves working the forge.”

“Even if that were true, isn’t it fair to say that if you were able to remove the enchantment from the creature, that it would return to its usual bestial state?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“Then, while I respect your beliefs, the safety of my men is paramount.  If it comes down to it, we WILL kill the bugbear.”

“I understand Captain, but if I might:  I was about to try to unlock this door.  It might lead to a safer route out of here.

“Very well then, proceed.”

During our conversation, the rest of the group had slowly gathered around us at the door.  Only Apemantus remained at his post, guarding the bugbear.  I motioned for him to join us, and then turned back to the task at hand.  Just a few clicks and the door was unlocked.  The Captain opened the door and strode through it without another word.  The rest of us quickly followed.

We were in an ante room with one door.  Now Dani wanted to try her hand at unlocking this door.  She succeeded, but as soon as she stepped into the hallway on the other side, she heard a clicking sound.  Realizing that she had sprung a trap, she did a back flip that returned her to the ante chamber seconds before dozens of wooden spikes shot out from the walls, blocking the passageway.  It took us a good twenty minutes to clear the spikes but we finally stood in front of another door, this one made of stone with no lock but enchanted writing had been carved into it that kept the door closed.  Begdemagus stepped up and deciphered the riddle but it was Dani who solved it.

The battle that followed is a bit of a blur.  Luckily we had the element of surprise and the enchanters (who had been in the process charming a cache of weapons) seemed heedless that their radiant bursts indiscriminately killing some of their own wounded allies.  After the fight we surveyed the room and found a bookshelf.  Regdar ordered most of the books located there to be destroyed, keeping only a huge tome that detailed the history of Lufkin.  Upon comprehending that we had found yet another virtual armory of weapons the Captain needed a way to quickly transport them to the tunnel.  Again it was Dani who came up with the solution: we could use the ore carts.

In the next hallway we found one of the slave quarters.  These slaves seemed be under an enchantment that granted them a little more free will than the ones working the forge but still highly suggestible.  The merest mention of game of chance and they were sitting around a table in the corner of the room.  My companions took full advantage of their state and were soon cheating the poor fellows out of their gold.  I had no stomach for this so Apemantus and I stepped outside the room where we ran into a female dwarf who was not taking part in the game.  She wanted to know if it was time to enchant the weapons.  The three of us were soon huddled in the hallway while I attempted to break her enchantment

As it turned out this was Dorf’s sister, Dedra.  She became more and more agitated, after learning of her brother’s fate (little did I know that her other brother Deirf had realized that he was being cheated and challenged Begdemagus to his own detriment) .  I decided that perhaps Dani could calm her down.  Dani was able to accomplish this but she didn’t correct Dedra when she mistakenly assumed that she (Dani) was Dorf’s woman. 

Our day ended with news from Regdar’s army that the female slave had made it back to Lufkin.  I at least breathed a sigh of relief.

Interlude 1

I watched Revlis and Apemantus until they disappeared around the bend in the river and was turning to go back to where we had left the rowboat, when I was spotted, I will be the first to say, I should have seen the boy first but my mind was on other things.  Did I say spotted?  A better word would have been targeted.  He ran by me like a blur and to my credit I recognized what had happened instantly.  He had cut my purse from my belt with a deft flick of his wrist.  I had to admire the skill.  I gave chase.  We were running down the coast toward a road that came in from the East and then bent South with shoreline.  He looked to be a boy of about eight or nine with brown wavy hair.  The scamp had built up a decent lead and I feared if I didn’t catch up to him soon, I would have to give up the pursuit and catch my breath instead.  That’s when I noticed the woman with the pie wagon coming in our direction.  The little thief ran right up to her gave her my purse and vanished somewhere behind the wagon.

“Can I interest in a hot meat pie M’Lord?”

“No, thank you, and I’m certainly not a Lo—Menolly? Is that you?”

“It’s been a long time Captain Gerard.”  And she emphasized the title.  “How long has it been?”

“Longer than either of us care to remember.”

But I did remember to the very hour.  It had been ten years since I had seen her.

“You sure I can’t interest you in my pastries?  I baked them myself in the kitchens of Lufkin this morning.”

I had been so shocked to see Menolly again, and it seemed like she was acting as if we were little more than strangers, that I had almost forgotten about the boy.

“That boy… Does he work for you?”

A wry smile crossed her lips.  “You could say that.”

“The purse he gave you…He stole it from me.”

“Really?  So, the Dread Pirate is getting some of his own back?”  She tossed the purse back to me..

“Are you angry with me?”

“No, just sad.”

“You didn’t have to leave you know.”

“I most certainly did.  It was a Decree from your father, the Mayor of  Kleine.”

“But you could have found me.  We could have stood up to him.”

“You know your father’s men weren’t going to let me come within a mile of you that night.  You weren’t even in the city.  Your father had you attending his brother’s banquet in Herald Home.  In the end I did what was best for you, me and…”  She trailed off.

“And what?”

“And I haven’t regretted it.”

Gerard Timeline

• Gerard is born
• Revlis, is born when Gerard is ten
• Thoven , Gerard’s father sends him to kill Revlis. Gerard’s nephew
• Gerard and Sempronius journey to the Temple of Kord, where they leave the infant Revlis.
• Gerard and Sempronius enter the Temple of Kord as Paladin candidates at eighteen.
• 7 years later Gerard and Sempronius are on a mission for the Temple in The Lower Great Grasslands when they come upon a monolith.
• At the monolith the two friends get separated and Sempronious disappears
• Weeks later Gerard and the monks begin to hear stories that Sempronious has betrayed his oath with the Temple and has been consorting with Theon, the Black Knight and Mongo the Giant.
• Gerard blames himself for his friends betrayal and a year later decides to leave the order himself, but he continues to have good relations with the monks.
• Gerard signs on as first mate on Samwell Trovbane’s ship.  Trovbane is a great rival of Thoven, Gerard’s father.

As Apemantus and I went deeper into the hole, we could just make out a dim light up ahead.  We were in very close quarters with only about five feet of clearance on all sides.  Abruptly Apemantus gasped and before I realized what was happening, we were both falling down a sharp drop-off in the floor of the cave.  Seconds later, I just had time to position my body to break the fall of Iva, one of the archers from the battle, who had apparently been right behind us.  All three of us lay in heap on the floor of a small chamber.  As I got to my feet, I noticed a grate in the wall, which had been the source of the light we had been following.  I approached the grate and could feel heat radiating out of it.  It would seem the chamber; in fact the entire tunnel, was an exhaust shaft.  It was not readily apparent what was causing all the heat.  As I got closer to the vent, I could hear an animated conversation coming from the other side and just below us.  I recognized the language immediately:: Goblin.

“You guys alright down there?”  It was Begdemagus poking his head out of the tunnel.  I motioned with my finger to be quiet.

“There are goblins on the other side of this grate.”  I whispered.

“Really, maybe I can understand them.  Hold on, we’re tying some rope together so we can climb down to you.”

Before I knew it, Regdar, and Begdemagus  had climbed down into the chamber and were peering through the grate (Dani had assumed the form of  an owl and flown down).

“It sounds like they’re playing some kind of game, wagering I would wager.”  Whispered Begdemagus.

We fell to discussing our next move.  I mentioned to Regdar my suspicion that the tunnel was really an exhaust shaft, but I could tell he was becoming frustrated.  Suddenly, he kicked the grate open and leaped feet first onto the table the goblins were seated around.  One by one my companions followed him into the fight.  I however, having come so close to Numbilung: only to watch him disappear before my very eyes was the last to join the fray.  I felt so defeated. The last thing I wanted to do was have to engage with goblins.

The noise of our skirmish and smoke from a fire Begdemagus had started in the course of the fight  had drawn the attention of a woman and a dwarf who had been passing in the hallway. As they were helping us put out the fire.  it became clear to me that they were under some kind of spell:  They were being used as slaves by the goblins to mine ore.  I decided to try to use my purifying power to break the spell.  As it turned out, the woman was from a town called Winterhaven and she was the wife of a man my companions had met on the road several weeks before.  They had set him up with lodgings in Lufkin and promised to be on the lookout for his wife.  We gave her a map to Lufkin and sent her back up the tunnel but not before she explained that her children, a boy and girl were still enslaved by the goblin somewhere in the complex.  We promised we would find them for her.

As for the dwarf whose name was Dorf: once the spell was broken, he wanted nothing less than to help us vanquish the goblins.  He was thrilled when Dani took the armor of one of the goblins and gave it to him. After that it seemed he lived to please her.

Regdar decided we should start to explore the complex.  We went down the hallway and behind the first door we came to were four sleeping goblins.  My companions made fast work of them but I still had no appetite for the practice.  Next we found a room that was filled with all manner of prestige weaponry.  Begdemagus’ eyes lit up and he was about to toss an acid bomb on them when Redar stayed his hand.

“Don’t you realize these weapons are far superior to anything my army has now?”  Regdar proceeded to load as much as most of our minions could carry.  He said for us to continue to explore while he and the minion’s escorted the weapons back to Luftkin.  

We turned down another hallway and I realized that this is where the heat was coming from.  I began to hear heavy clanking.  It was the sound of a blacksmith and the heat was the heat of a forge.  We poured into the room taking the goblin’s by complete surprise.  Dorf tried showing off for Dani by attacking a goblin who was walking along a catwalk over what seemed to be a vast ore pit. The poor little dwarf lost his footing and fell over the side of the catwalk and into the steaming ore.  He was instantly vaporized.

“Dorf!!!” Dani cried out.  She had become very attached to the creature.

As for me, the frustration that had been boiling up in me finally exploded.  I went for the largest man in room, the pit boss.  I hacked away at him with my sword until he went down dead.  I looked over and realized that my companions had encircled a bugbear on the other side of the room.  They had greatly wounded the creature but he refused to die.  I took aim at the creature with my crossbow and realized I had the perfect shot, a killshot.  Apemantus put his hand on my shoulder and gently took the crossbow from me.  He was right; there was something different about this bugbear.  It had a nobility about it.

“Why didn’t you take the shot?!”  Begdemagus  called.

I didn’t know how to answer him.

“That’s it! You obviously have your own agenda.  I don’t know what but I’m not sticking around to let you get me killed.”  He stormed out of the room the way we had come.

“I’ll see if I can talk to him.”  Apemantus said as he followed Begdemagus down the hallway.

Dani had found what appeared to be the pit boss’s quarters.  She had determined that the trunk at the foot of his bed had been booby trapped with a poison needle.  In the process of trying to purify it for her I ended up getting pricked with it myself.  I stumbled out of the room and approached the wounded bugbear lying on the floor.

“Must guard door.”  It mumbled weakly.

If I wasn’t sure before I was now certain that this was no ordinary bugbear.  I lay down beside it and took it’s paw in my hand.

“I only hope I have enough power to heal the both of us big guy..” 

I felt the healing surge cleansing me of poison and knitting the bugbear’s wounds. I moved away from the creature and looked for a suitable place to sleep.  I finally settled down near a door across the room from the bugbear. As I lay there I saw Begdemagus coming back from the hallway with Apemantus.  I wondered what my friend had said to the mage but was too sleepy to do anything about it..  And then my armor started to tingle.  I realized that the door I was lying beside was the best route for us to take in the morning.  With that thought, I finally drifted off.