My First Adventure : by Naiden Swiftcaller - Adventurer and Musical Genius

It was almost closing time at our favourite haunt in Rockyfalls, The Inn of the Red Onion. Barmaids frantically serving last drinks to sozzled farmers encouraging them to drink up. My sensitive ears picked up the sounds of talking in hushed tones which naturally twinged at my curiosity. Walking over to the two men responsible I casually strummed a little tune that I had created to loosen the lips of any who heard. Being simple farmers it worked a treat. The two men told of how they had noticed the man usually responsible for lighting the streets at night was nowhere to be seen, and in his place another man had tried to take the job upon himself, however he was no master of the stilts required to light the lanterns high up on the street poles.

I rallied my companions although initially we forgot to include the wizard. Druss and Crimson found a stone with a skull on it under the bridge where the towns whineos usually sleep. Where were they tonight? Something was up.

My ever alert ears (you have to have good ears in my line of work) picked up the startled cry of a man back in town. Crimson and Druss seemed to have their own ideas and ran off after Druss's mangy dog, tramping through the woods after a barking dog like thundering dumb beasts that thunder through the woods, er thunderingly.

My brave self and the fat cleric Randall decided to head to danger rather than have a nice jaunt through the woods. It was not long before we came to a dingy alleyway. My keen senses picked up a handfull of men ahead. They were dragging an inert townsman. Never one to sleep on the job I immediately recognised some of the men as local ruffians, Alam, Subor and Garis. Garis seemed to be the ringleader. There were others but the darkness hid them from me for now.

Our plan, although im sure I could have taken them all down by myself. Was instead to follow them. Surely they had done this before, I mean what happened to the bridge dwellers? So follow we did. We almost gave away our posititon when Randall's girth scraped upon a discarded cowbell or something but we blended into the shadows just in time.

Following the men through the woods we were making good progress. Them without notice Randall decided to bump into my Mandolin and it strummed loudly. It must have been Randall because I was sneaking much to cautiosly for it to have been my fault. Two men broke off from the main party and came back to investigate. There was no - where to hide. I made my move. Strumming a little tune I had come up with a week or so ago, my genius inspired me to pretend I was making a little ditty up for an upcoming festival. The men approached. "What are you doing?" one blurted out in a most common tone. "Seeking inspiration for a song im making up for the festival" I replied. One of the men seemed to believe every word I said. The other seemed a little more cautious. "I dont believe ya", "Nonsense, hes just making up a song" replied the other. I knew that this was the right time to strike, I had my mighty rapier at the ready and I neatly inserted it into the disbelieving mas stomach. He reeled in agony. Randall helped to and we brought the two men to justice. I reminded Randall that we were not common thugs and made sure he healed them so that they wouldnt die. Then we tied them to trees with their own undergarments.

It was then that we heard the dog again. We decided to follow these sounds as it appeared that the mutt had found something.

When we arrived it appeared that Crimson and Druss had blundered through the ruins of Cliffguard Keep where the bandits obviously had a base on their own. The dog had been used to check for traps and had found one. They could have healed it but fatty decided that 'divine' healing was only for humans and let the faithfull creature die in agony instead. I wont soon forget that.

Now that the leader had rejoined the party, me, we went on. Another battle or two ensued and we all worked cohesively together with my direction.

At the entrance to the keep, my ears picked up a sound. A lone figure emerged from the surrounding forest and shambled towards us. Getting closer to it I saw one of its eyes had popped out of its socket and slithered halfway down its cheek still attached by sinues. It muttered something under its breath. I couldnt quite make it out. I leaned in closer. "....brains", my blood ran cold and I ran....backtracked tactically to allow the cleric to turn the undead creature. It was soon destroyed, however when we next paid attention to our surroundings we noticed that the woods were alive with similar abominations.

Too many for the feeble cleric to handle, we beat a retreat into the old crumbling fortress. Inside we were safe for the time being. We closed the two hulking oak doors

Hoping that this would keep them at bay. Before this was done Druss covered the area before the door in oil and I have him my 1 gold piece tindertwig. I knew it would come in handy when I spent my last gold on it. As we closed the doors several of the nearest zombies caught flame.

I came upon a doorway that the mighty Crimson could not open even with all of this strength. “step aside”, I said and rolled up my shirt sleeve. I ran at the door and burst through it with an amazing show of strength and manliness. Unfortunately the seal around the door was some sort of trap and fire covered me, burning my robe and my some of my beautiful red hair. We spent the next few minutes convincing the less brave among us that this was the only way to go.

We checked out the entire area and came upon an entrance to the catacombs. From here on things would not go our way. We came upon an open area in the catacombs, where there had been traps before, this seemed to be too easy going for my liking. My keen eyes noticed that as I walked the dust I kicked up disappeared in the ground ahead of me. It didn’t settle onto the ground, it seemed to go straight through it. Sure enough the ground ahead was an illusion and it hid a huge spiked pit. The zombies had broken through and were closing. We kept the pit between us and them. A few fell in but some were smarter if this was possible and we were soon outnumbered. Without time to escape we had to run down a corridor where we had turned a portion of them. We hit a dead end and had to battle our way out. All heavily injured the final blow came when our warrior, Druss fell. The cleric went down to and things were looking desperate. I could not lift the heavier cleric and Crimson seemed interested in only rescuing a fellow warrior. I summoned all the strength I could and dragged the rolly cleric. Crimson hoisted the warrior over his shoulders and we headed for an underground river that we had found earlier. Once we reached the river there was no turning back. The idea was to get to the other side and at least be safe from the horde of undead that stalked us. Crimson hoisted Druss as far as he could but it was not far enough and he fell into the roaring river. He had to follow suit to try and keep him afloat. I rolled the cleric into the water and tried to keep him afloat. Druss’s body wedged upon a section of river that intersected the underground canyon and we could not get to him. Crimson and I did our best to keep the cleric’s head above water, then as the river went into a smaller canyon and we followed all we could do was try and save ourselves. It was sometime then that I lost consciousness despite my best efforts to stay awake and save the portly pastor. I woke to Crimson’s swearing. It seemed that at least the three of us were alive if not well. We staggered back to town to alert the guard. Hardly interested they gave us an acolyte cleric and a couple of fledgling guards to accompany us back. Surely our friend was dead but we had to try.

We stayed the night and healed up as best we could. We remembered our friend the mage and asked him along too.

We found our way back to where we had last seen our friend and discovered another level below the one where we lost him.

We eventually came upon an alter room with several stone slabs. On top of each slap lay a dead human. On one of the slabs lay our friend, Druss. My eyes immediately latched onto the ringleader of the thugs, Garis. My attention was quickly turned however to a much larger robed figure, “kill them, kill them all!” it husked.

I played a tune I knew would mesmerize the creature but everyone waded on into battle and broke my spell. The mage cast a magical missile at the large robed figure only to see in his horror that the missile turned around and came back towards him. The mage was almost killed by his own spell.

I jabbed some zombies with my rapier however this was not the weapon of choice and I soon switched to my trusty mace.

The cleric mangaged to heal Druss, luckily for us he had not succomed to being zombie fodder and the robed one obviously had other plans for him.

Undead were continually raised from the stone slabs as we tried to get to their master. Eventually they had been slain, Garis lay in a pool of his own blood. The robed one was strangely untouchable by our weapons. It sounded as if we were hitting stone. Then a lucky shot from Crimson or Druss made it bleed green blood. It was then that it simply faded into nothingness. A lucky escape. We would have killed it.

Behind the alter we found Druss’s equipment and some new ones for us. I found what I believe to be an Adamantine mace, I intend to discover what hidden powers this mighty weapon possess for surely a weapon in possession of a tall dark robed figure would be powerful.

Back in town, the dark plot exposed, the townsfolk saved, we decided it was time we left for a larger town. A place were we could do more good. Baldurs Gate was too provincial we decided, it would have to be Waterdeep.