Year 2, Day 18-19

Feeling a little worse for wear, Arad, Kaellana, and I proceeded deeper into Raver territory. I'm not sure what happened to Aramel and the hell guy, but we left them behind, presumably they'll meet up with us again at some point. Now that I look back, Aramel was probably digesting, in some way, all of the grappling ravers that just attacked us. Confident in the abilities of my companions, and still knowing that I needed to grow accustomed to my new form, we struck out, hopefully into danger.

After a while of wandering through the rubble choked alleys, our group emerged into a large open square that appeared to be filled with clumps of people that milled around aimlessly. In the center of the square, a squat reddish stone building sat, apparently pierced in place by the greenish glassed floating tower that had fallen into it sometime ago. From what Sister Fela had told us, the conjoined buildings must be Culrick Hall, supposed home of the Stonekeeper Ravers. Knowing that they might be watching us, in addition to the veritable crowd of people before us, I felt we needed to make an impressive entrance.

I quickly conferred with Kaellana and filled her in on my scheme. With a mischievous grin, she transformed into a brown bear and I leaped atop her back. Once settled, we charged across the square to the tower in case an waiting Ravers might try to take us down from afar with arrows or magic. Nothing stirred from the structure, as far as we could tell, and all we truly managed to accomplish, was terrifying the children and a goodly number of the scags living in this benighted district.

Now that we were closer to the building, the architecture struck me as familiar and I remembered reading about a group of dwarves that were known for their construction of squat, fortress-like buildings whose entrances were flanked by two statues of their ancestors. Filing that information away for the future, we ventured inside and found, to our dismay, that Kaellana would need to revert to her true form if she was going to explore the building easily. Shattered glass from the fallen tower had inundated a great swath of the interior, and it was only by the gift of my dastardly quick feet that I was able to scamper through without falling.

While my companions were making their own way to follow me, I was using one of the new gifts I had recieved from being turned into a deep halfling: darkvision. The rare, narrow slits, that the dwarven builders had included in their building were woefully inadequate for a normal human to navigate by, but I could now ignore that concern. The first door I opened led to a strange sight as what appeared to be a wooden wall sat not five feet in front of my, blocking my view into the room. I soon learned why as two brutish orcs wielding greataxes came charging out from their hiding places, roaring mindlessly. Now, while I'm always up for a challenge, getting accosted by axe wielding maniacs in the dark, in a room that could hide a dozen more for all I know, with my companions on the other side of a field of glass didn't seem like a winning proposition so I tred to extricate myself from the room as safely as possible.

This worked, to a degree, as I was able to make my way back into the hall and survive as my companions joined me. Then the orcs' true skills came to light as they chopped my greatspear in twain. Weaponless, I was perplexed as to what I could do given that I had recently lost all my possessions and back up weapons. Luckily Kaellana, who was loosing arrows and magic from the ceiling above me, dropped her quarterstaff and crisped the offending orc with a searing ball of fire. I scooped up her weapon, and in my rage at losing my former weapon, launched a devastaing strike that cause the last orc to gasp in shock as he crumpled in a heap of death.

What occurred next was dismaying, but as a group we managed to survive. The orcs had had more companions in the room and with their penchant for attack our armor and weapons, I lost the quarterstaff and Arad's spare scimitar over the course of seconds. Seeing what needed to be done, I raced back to the first orcs we had slain and lifted up their massive weapons to use against the rest of their compatriots. By this time, the druid's magic had taken a sever toll and while Arad lost an enchanted shield, his thick armor protected him from falling that day.

Afterward, weaponless as I was, I collected four more axes to carry around in my pack as I wielded one in my hands. Though they were ludicrously sized, I placed my trust in my ability to learn to use almost any weapon and after we had barricaded the room to heal and rest, I spent an hour learning how to effectively wield the cumbersome weapons with my diminutive frame.

With that out of the way, we continued our exploration of the first floor of the building, facing naught but disgusting rats that made one think that simply looking at them would cause some sort of contamination. Then seeing the way ahead of us sloping up through a jagged glass tunnel into the fallen tower, we took a moment to consider how to proceed.

-A.N.-
aka. Alton Goodbarrel