We convened around the table at breakfast this morning, to try and decide what to do next. We formed something of a mixed party, but had banded together to seek our fortunes. Only time would decide if I had been wise in joining my fate to that of ones I knew so little of. Seated around the table that morning were:
Silk: Myself, Novice Mage and Thief, average size for a human, but a bit large for a half elf. Nothing special to look at, despite the blond hair and blue eyes inherited from my unknown father.
Neu Gai: Novice Fighter, A full elf, just over 5 feet and slender, with gray eyes and black hair.
Francis Adronicus: Novice Cleric of Fortuna, also part elf, can't really get a clear image of him at the moment, but he likes to party.
Bernina Singer: Novice Fighter and Thief, nobody's idea of a dream date, but there's something about chicks in leather...
Looking at the contents of our meager purses, we quickly decided that the first order of business was to earn enough gold that we wouldn't be thrown out of the inn. We were also badly in the need of better equipment than we could afford so far. The Adventurer's Guild was a possibility, but at this point we lacked the gold for the initiation fee. The only lead we had was a tattered notice I had spotted tacked to the side of the inn. A local wizard needed some errands run and was looking for adventurers to do the job. Having nothing better to go on we decided to pay him a call.
Aslam's tower was just outside of town, so we soon found ourselves standing outside the door. It seemed kind of small, only about 20 feet in diameter, but it went up a ways. After knocking on the door and getting no answer, we decided to go in. The entrance hall was quite spacious, a square room about 30 feet on a side, with a few comfy chairs and a table in the middle. On the table was a tray with a few petrified sandwiches. On the opposite wall was another door leading out.
Not finding anyone we could ask for directions to the wizard, we decided to do a little exploring, or maybe snooping would be a better description. Beyond the door was another room the same size as the entrance hall, that looked to be the wizard's bedroom. It too had a door on the opposite side. After slapping down Bernina's instinct to snoop in the wizard's stuff, we went through the door into a laboratory. By this time I realized that the layout of this building was most peculiar. It was obviously much much larger on the inside than on the outside. We soon discovered that what room a door led to was essentially random. Eventually we spotted a servant in the dining room who led us to Aslam.
Aslam was quite bizarre. I hope I'm more normal when I get to his level of power. As events proved later, he is way up there. After a rather random and circular conversation (much like the layout of the tower) we received a list of spell components that Aslam needed gathered. It was a rather strange list, but he was willing to pay extremely good prices:
The only problem was we had no idea where to start looking for most of this stuff. The only lead I could come up with off the top of my head was to search the town sewers for giant rats. Not a pleasant task, but no one had a better idea. We'd gotten a bit of up front cash to help equip, but not enough to buy anything really nice. A few short shopping stops later and we were ready to go.
We started off for an entrance to the sewers that I knew of where we could enter unobserved. It took the combined muscle of most of the party to move the sewer grate, but we managed to lift it off without attracting attention. I fastened a spike to the wall inside the sewer and we climbed down a rope to the main tunnel. The stench was awful and it was pretty dark once we moved away from the grate. We found a skeleton after a hundred yards or so but no rats. We wandered for a while below the town, finding a few more exits to the surface, until I thought to look under the restaurant district. This proved to be a good idea, as we saw signs of rats as we drew near. Bernina, thinking we might be too loud as a group, decided to scout ahead and moved away from the rest of the party. Moments later we heard her yell "Run!" Needless to say this caused some confusion. Neu Gai and I started moving toward her quickly, thinking she wanted us to hurry to help her, and Glug started running away, thinking she wanted us to flee. I'm not sure what happens in the dark but I think that Glug went face first in the muck and we went over him!
We finally approached the rats in some semblance of order, with Neu Gai bravely taking point position and the rest of us jostling behind him in shifting order. I cast a sleep spell which took out most of them, and Neu Gai started wailing on the rest. As he strode past the sleeping rats to engage the attacking rats, the remainder of the party started killing the sleeping ones. By the end of the battle everyone had done a share. Bernina had relieved Neu Gai at one point after he was bitten, and slew a rat or two herself, and Glug proved a deadly aim with his enchanted rocks, dispatching the last of our furry foes. We collected the tails in an old sack, and headed back. When we reached the rope, we found a drunk had fallen into the open hole, so we hauled him to the top. This proved a mistake, as someone spotted us and thought we'd attacked him. Not wanting to explain our sojourn in the sewer, we fled, but the incident made the next day's paper.
We moved as discreetly as we could out of town to the river, and washed as much of the slime of the sewers off our cloths and bodies, but we were still pretty rank. We headed at that point to the Nervous Sheep, an Inn where I knew we could get a hot bath with no questions asked. We took a suite for the night, and Glug, with his usual loose purse, paid far more than the room was worth. I'll try and talk the innkeeper in making that count for multiple nights, but we may just be out the gold.
Since it was still fairly early, we went back to try and collect our pay after taking a bath. It was a lot faster getting in this time, as we just stayed in the first room and opened and closed the door until we found him. He didn't have any gold on him, so he offered us a gem. I did a quick appraisal and realized it was worth only about half what we'd been promised. More than I'd pay for rat tails, but hey, a deal's a deal. I pointed this out to Aslam, and he looked at the gem for a moment. It got bigger. A lot bigger. Then he did something else to it. I tried to use spellcraft, and recognized some of what he was doing. Whoa. Permanency. Remind me to stay on this guy's good side. You don't even start casting spells like that until 16th level. And he tosses one off like it doesn't matter. Ouch. I take a look at the gem, and realize it's now worth at least twice what we were owed. Cool.
A short trip to the jeweler later and we're 750 gold pieces richer. Even after my cut to the guild I'll have enough left to buy some better equipment, and so will everyone else. A fine days work. Except I still smell faintly like shit. Neu Gai and Glug decided to spend some of their advance on a night of "fun" on the town. Glug, it seems, is quite the man with dice. He managed to double their stake in a *very* short time. So short that it attracted notice where it's best not to be known. On their way home with the big winnings, the guys they had been playing against jumped them. Fortunately, Neu Gai has a very hard head, and was able to resist the sapping he received and stay on his feet. In the short but ugly battle that followed they killed one of their assailants and the other fled. Bernina and I arrived at this point, and I pegged the fleeing guy with a magic missile, but he didn't drop. Bernina tried to tail him, but he managed to shake her. The town guard arrived, and I was all for fading into the shadows, but Glug was able to talk his way out of things. I was impressed, but I tried not to show it. I can never seem to talk my way out of stuff like that. Of course, I'm usually guilty when it happens, but that's another matter. We made it back to the inn, and since it was a very full day, we locked the room and crashed.
On to Journal Two