Extracted from the diary of Acratin Gorast, Valarian

17th of the month of Mentai, A.S. 357

Today I woke up in the small Elethay village where I have been training. While wandering through the town I discovered the local tavern. Not having had a chance to rest in a week, I stopped in. I walked over to the bar, sat down, and ordered a drink. I looked next to me and saw Alamais, one of the other Valarians I had been working with, sitting there.

A few of the others we had been with walked up to the bar and took seats, Xanthos, Shinji, and an Orc by the name of Glenth. I got to talking with the Bartender. He told me about some local events. A monolith north of some ruins. A cave filled with treasure. New necromancers causing terror. And also about some bandits that were in the area.

After hearing this I left the tavern to go into the general store. I was followed by everybody except for Alamais. I was looking around for various items in the store, while the others interrogated the shopkeeper about the surrounding terrain. After not finding anything of use, I left the general store and re-entered the pub.

After the others returned, we decided to go exploring the area surrounding the town. We were searching for that cave the treasure was rumoured to be in, although Alamais had wanted to search for the monolith. We went east towards the plains which the shopkeeper had said was there. Shinji remained behind.

We headed towards the east for a bit, and lost the path we were following. Unfortunately, we got lost. Alamais spotted some hills in the distance. We weren't sure what direction though. Somehow Xanthos figured out that it was to the south. We spent the rest of the day heading towards them. Around the end of the day I bagged a rabbit which we ate for dinner, for some reason, Alamais declined. Later that night Shinji showed up.

I took the first watch. As it turns out, some riders appeared. they were angry that I had killed in their territory. Apparently the rabbit had been about to give birth... They said that game had been scarce lately and demanded 10 gold from us in payment. After spending a lot of time trying to get them to pay it off some other way, they accepted Shinji's offer to perform for them.

The night passed quickly, I managed to stay up for most of it. In the morning the riders left, and their leader told me his name was Jacob Habeth. Those of us that had stayed up all night went to sleep the day in.

19th of the month of Mentai, A.S. 357

The next morning we all woke up, to find Xanthos had been walking in circles all night. Well, there is no accounting for the actions of a Werewolf. Anyway...we got up and continued towards the hills. We reached them early in the morning. we spent the day exploring, hoping for a sign of that cave. Not finding any by twilight, we set up camp for the night. Once again, I took first shift.

This time, I heard a voice behind me partway through. I turned around, and shouted, next thing I knew, a knife was at my throat. Thank god that I'm a unicorn, I teleported behind him and stabbed him in the back with my own knife. While I did this Xanthos shifted...two of the three bandits, the ones that weren't busy with a knife in their back, ran for their lives. I shouted to the remaning one to throw down his weapon. He refused. He turned around and hit me hard. At which point Xanthos launched himself at the thief and mauled him to death.

Having no respect for the corpse of a bandit, we looted it. The items there were of minor use, a buckler, a sling, a broken spear, and 10 gold. It was spread out among who wanted what item. I took the buckler. We then saw the other two bandits running off, I shifted to Unicorn form in hope that I could shoot them down with my own powers. I missed much to my regret. They got away...they'll be back eventually, with friends.

Alamais found the horse of the dead bandit, with it's packs still on it. As he brought it over the packs fell off, and the horse, seeing us, ran as far as it could. We decided to get back to sleep, this time, I'm not taking first watch.

Back to Home

Copyright 2000 Clayton Marshall