For some reason the gathering had attracted an inordinate number of elves and while some of them seemed nice enough, notably the druids, the others seem to be fairly shady characters. That isn’t a problem for me, I can deal with them as long as our goals align and they don’t cause me problems but I’ll have to keep my eye on them at the very least. I also met a gnomish ninja of all things. Our host was clearly taken by her but she seemed unaware, or unreceptive, to his advances and while he talked about his mother far too much, I knew that I needed to be the center of attention. I have some minor skill in tumbling and so I thought I’d try to entertain everyone present and lighten the mood.
I failed, barely managing to regain my seat after toppling off of the table while trying to climb on top of it for my performance.
Silence and tension once again descended on our gathering and the attempts by our host to learn more about people was met with little help. Another elf, a cleric of some kind, would barely give us his name and had no reason for even answering the singles ad, clearly wasting our time for his own amusement. The delay from my previous tumbling excursion had bolstered my courage so I once again stormed the table to entertain the meek gathering that I had joined. This time my skill was with me and my provocative tumbling performance awed and inspired those who gazed upon me, exciting them. Unfortunately, upon regaining my seat once more I realized that most of the gathering was male and that while my skill had been beyond comprehension, I had just made many males very uncomfortable with their own sexuality.
Little more developed past that worth mentioning save that our patron departed to pursue an arrangement with a serving wench while leaving us with the bill for the reserved table. Some quick talking on my part persuaded the waiter to reveal that out host did this regularly and that he would seek recompense from him instead of getting the money from us.
Having no more reason to remain in The Tavern, we collectively headed for the door and entered the pounding rain that soaked the night. I noticed that one of the druids had broken off from our group and disappeared in our departure but she was lost from my mind as I noticed two bodies lying on one of the sky bridges near the tavern by the light of one of the few working ever lights. A short, hooded figure was moving away from the bodies and while the situation was highly suspicious, the thought that I heard uttered around me was, “let’s go see if they have any loot”. Frankly, I didn’t care one way or the other. The single’s meeting had been a bust and if I helped these guys search the corpses I might be able to find some valuable trinkets.
As I ran over to the bodies I could see that one was an old man clothed in robes, and the other was a very shiny warforged, appearing inert. My inspection of them was interrupted by an unintelligible command from the shadows across the bridge which caused me to search for the source of the voice. I could barely see through the darkness and rain, but something that did cause me concern was the pink blood leaking from the short scurrying creature, and the fact that it had turned around and was coming towards me with weapons and shields held in four arms! My training and instincts took over as I fell into a fighting stance with my great spear ready. The creature tried to close with me but a few devastating attacks was enough to see the creature off. That’s when I noticed more of its fellows emerging from the shadows across the bridge.
A set of these four armed, two mouthed creatures came at our group and while the rest of the party was fairly ineffective, the cleric and druid were at least capable of healing me after these goblinoids swarmed me, clearly identifying me as the real threat they faced. The fighting was fierce and a number of our group were knocked unconscious. Thanks to my skill I personally managed to dispatch five of our foes, and some stranger and his three war dogs interfered in the battle before I could kill the rest.
Strangely enough, the man departed after telling us not to trust a woman who was going to come looking for the blank journal we had found on the old man. He then left before the town watch came across the remains of our battle, well picked of any valuable items of course. We answered a few questions and the watch allowed us to leave seeing as how we had clearly acted in self defense. Our group decided to meet at The Tavern the next day to discuss the strange blank journal we had found on the old man.
-A.N.-
No comments:
Post a Comment