The Personal Records of Veruna

18th of Pharast, 4709


In two weeks I have gone from ex-pirate, to floor manager at the GGGH (Great Galloping Gobbling Gook Hook... or as some may know it, the Gold Goblin Gambling Hall). From a glorious free wheeler, to being responsible for nigh on every detail in this "fine" establishment. The amusement of countless neerdowells resting on my very shoulders.

What in the seven hells got me here...?

I suppose it started, as all good things do, with boredom. Ten days ago, upon hearing rumors that there was too be some excitement down near the harbor, I wandered into the gilded doors of the Gold Goblin. The proprietor was putting on some fine entertainment by way of a gambling tournament. I was a touch short on coin myself, and not at all confident in my odds, but I thought it might be a worthy way to while away an hour or three. The excitement proved greater than expectation when robbery of the pot was attempted, and a handful of us bystanders stepped in and stopped it.  

I assumed they were all as bored as I was.

I was half wrong.....but I'm getting ahead of myself. 
Anywho, it seems that this here fine proprietor, Saul, the Keyforahand, was so hard up for employees that he hired us motley bystanders on the spot-few questions asked. Those previously in his employ having stepped out due to irreconcilable differences. The stars had aligned however, because all four of us were so hard up for work that we all said yes--despite the complete lack of decent amenities offered. I mean, who agrees to work for a guy who offers room and board in a 4 bunk attic hole, and piss poor selection of drinks at the bar?! 
I do.
I take that offer. 
And so did three others. Like I said, I was bored. I still am not sure what their excuses were...

Needless to say, the tournament was a bust. There was a decent payout for individual winnings but not enough to keep a few ruffians away from trying to shake down the money man the following day. They were quickly handled and sent on there way, and we continued business as usual, hiring new staff and trying to bolster what threadbare reputation this place had to begin with. See, Saul's own history isn't too pristine. The story goes that he angered one of Riddleport's overlords so much that he had to sacrifice a hand... and any sort of dignity he had to begin with. And so, as one does, in trying to turn over a new leaf he goes into deep debt in order to make a profit out of making things seem better than they really are... and he's not very good at it. 

Personally, I find this new career to be a bit of a farce, but when I mentioned this opinion to my new roommates I was met with some dissension. It seems that both the giant of a half-orc, Katal, and Juan-jolio, the unconventional cleric of the art goddess with a name longer than my tail both seem to have some sort of strangely passionate work ethic, Katal even going on and on about "satisfaction", as if the simple act of work itself were enough to give him pleasure. The frog however seems ambivalent, and yet shockingly, enduringly cheerful. But then, whose to say the wizard experiment that created him didn't addle his brain somewhat. Yes, you read that right. I share a room with three males. Two uptight men, and one boy-pet-thing that I'm not quite sure how to quantify. It's like I never left my life on the sea. Except my bed is now stationary. And none of my roommates drink.
Either way, we make the best of it. Katal even has expressly asked that we spend concentrated time getting to know one another, "for fighting purposes". This has proven to be entertaining so far, although the more I learn about Juan-jolio, our holy man, the more I doubt that he will stay long in our fair city. Despite his expressionless face, he seems quite disillusioned with what we have to offer and will most likely move on. Which is unfortunate because he is an amusing enigma. Katal and the frog, who most unfortunately is named Gurgleurp, don't seem to be going anywhere, for what it's worth. The swol giant already being a bit of a fixture in town, and the latter being all too enamored with his new life outside of the jungle. After nearly two weeks breathing the same air in our small quarters I must admit that they all have made my time working at this establishment worth it, and I kinda look forward to knowing them better.  
And that's about enough sentimentality to choke a camel...
In the past few days two things of note have happened. Three days ago I got a promotion(ish), and today the sky rained large black rocks that nearly killed two people just outside the Gilded Gorphorb. Both of these things have been wonderful for business. 

A few days ago Saul gathered us all in a state of panic because the furry faced floor manager had gone off with a loan payment and hadn't returned. It was a big payment, too. 500 gold coin. So we left to see if we could find out what happened to it. We didn't. We did however secure the deed to the GGGH from the loan shark who was holding it. We had a nice "chat" with him and he was more than happy to forgive the debt and hand the deed back over to Saul. Katal and Juan-jolio's powers of persuasion are nearly as strong as their work ethic, it seems. Not to mention that in a short weeks time Katal's "practice" has paid off since he managed to not knock the loan shark's head clean off his shoulders as I saw him do when we first started working the joint. That man is a difficult one to understand. When one is ridiculously strong, why would one want to reign it in? But I digress. 

As mentioned, we found no loan payment. Neither did we find a dwarf. He is assumed at this point to be dead, since the only things we could find of his were a ransacked house and a bloodied and torn cloak in the alleyway. And so in the absence of a floor manager, Saul foolishly offered me the job. Now I get to boss around all the people and be in charge of all the things, and I have my own office! 
Yeah, this is gonna go well...

At least now we are earning more per week. Saul is so pleased with us that he made us full partners in the business and plans to retire in two years, thereby offloading this insanity onto the four of us. Again, this is gonna go well... But as for now, as long as the sky stops from actively trying to kill people, our business might actually succeed. Well, that is, if we can pay off whatever other debts Saul hinted about. This will be fine...

Oh yes. Back to the matter of a homicidal atmosphere... I now have one unconscious man sleeping off his bruises next to me here in my office. Not nearly romantic as it sounds, trust me. And I also have one of our guest rooms taken up with a gravely wounded mother that the frog barely managed to keep from dying right before my eyes (I still don't quite know how he pulled that one off) and her frightened daughter whom I keep occupied with pastries and endless games of tic-tac-toe until she fell asleep, drooling on my sleeve...
All three of these unexpected patrons were miraculous hauled in from danger by Katal alone, and would most likely be dead if not for him. I believe Juan-jolio has finally returned from his latest goose chase (looking for his long lost friend) and is looking to the mother's wounds now. They should be able to be on their way in the morning. 


It's been a long day. At least I have a shipment of finer liquor to stock our bar to look forward to. Soon... Very soon.

26th of Pharast, 4709

Last night was horse snot. Complete and utter horse snot. Saul has more problems than a derelict brigantine.  Just when we think we've shore up one mess, another springs a leak and we're taking on water... again. 

I signed up for this, didn't I... 

Yup, I really did sign up to take care of the problems of one of the most problematic men in town. Because it was going to be entertaining. 

Five broken windows and nearly three lives later...I'm thinking I could do with a little less entertainment.

The Goblin was assaulted last night. A total of fourteen thugs kicked in windows and doors not minutes after our last customer took their leave. Though we made quick work of them, even slaying those who attempted to flee, they nearly killed three of our staff. Katal, Pint-size, and Phillipe* were all swimming in pools of blood by the end of it all, and would have joined the great choir invisible had it not been for the terse ministrations of JuanJolio. I am not ashamed to admit that I am thankful our reticent neighborhood healerman was present. Such loss we can ill afford. Especially with the financial loss it cost us to get back up and running again,

...in a day. 

"Fix the windows! Clean up the mess! Do it by noon, or I'll dock your pay!!" (or something to that effect) Yes, yes, according to Saul we can ill afford to miss a day of business! I can't understand why. Ever since the debt on the building was cleared we've been making profit. The new imported liquor did indeed boost our numbers as expected. We're doing quite well, despite Saul's circumstances. I don't think missing one day is going to make a difference in our bottom line. But what the hells, we'll do it anyway, and lose more money paying for a rush job than we would had we simply shut down for repairs. 

You can't hear me, but I'm sighing. 

So here's the skinny. Every string of trouble seems to lead back to that contemptuous meat-head, Kleg. Yes, the self same one who came to "visit" a few days after the tournament, bringing his friend, the kitchen snake. There is some bad blood between he and our auspicious owner, something about Saul killing Kleg's sister's husband's father's third cousin, or some such thing. Either way, Kleg is the reason Saul has one hand, and most of the reason Saul has such a bad rep in town. And the list goes on.

-The ape-faced man (with the ape) who gave the loan to Saul for the Goblin, the loan shark we inadvertently strong armed to get the deed from, he works for Kleg.

-The miscreant who tried buying our long awaited liquor out from under us, that Bradicur Flabberjabber, was a captain in Kleg's crew. (Yeah, that was a thing. Katal and JuanJolio went to pick up our shipment of fine alcohol and those blasted merchants were trying to sell it to someone else! They even had the gall to try and block our men from joining the negotiations. Katal and JuanJolio took care of things, however, and successfully returned with our rightful shipment.)

-And unsurprisingly, last night's assault was led by one of Kleg's men. Seems he got permission to join forces with one "Boss Krote" to mount an assault on the GGGH. Just to get at Saul. 
For this business to continue unhindered, Kleg needs to go. 




28th of Pharast, 4709 
 
Saul was wrong. He said there was no way Kleg and Krote would attack a second time. His reasoning being that they had lost too much, both in men and money, to dare try again. But word on the street is that they are doubling down, and the plans for an even bigger assault are being drawn up tonight. Both party's are to meet at the Boneyard, and we are going down there incognito to either spy on them, or clean their clocks. There is no way in hells that we will let Kleg succeed. I feel the burning need to make him pay.

Honestly, I'm not sure what we've gotten ourselves into. 

I'm sure it'll be fine... 



*Veruna honestly doesn't know the name of the other bouncer who almost bit it in the fight.  She just made up his name on the spot.

Much later--still the 28th


Naivety will be the death of me.

So, we got to the Boneyard in time for the meeting between Kleg and Krote's forces, decked out in whatever makeshift disguises I could manage. While we are not famous, we are a fairly odd bunch, and most likely too easily recognized. Bandhu flew over the marsh, noting the congregation stiffly waiting some short yards ahead. But we weren't to get much closer before we were accosted by were-rats. There were only three of them, but they put up a decent fight. Bandhu could barely get a solid hit on them. We pulled a note off their corpses that was written in thieves cant. That did little to deter JuanJolio and I from being able to read it. Though the thought of that affected eccentric knowing such a sordid code gives me pause. Questions for another time, I suppose. Once translated the note read, 

My ally, Saul Vandercaskin, is sending a group of victims to the Boneyard. They will be there tomorrow night. Kill them all, we don't want to induct them into our gang. Keep whatever valuables  they have. When I see proof they are dead you'll be paid and be part of the family. -Z

Huh. Our world as we knew it was a farce. Whodah thunk? 
 
This fact was somewhat corroborated by the elf who appeared out of nowhere after we felled the were-rats. Sounds fishy? Yeah...   He introduced himself as Kwava of the Shrin-Rakora, a mercenary group that exists to be a force of light to combat forces of darkness. Sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it? It gets better. He believes we are just the ones to help him. In what endeavor, you ask? In killing Saul and thus bringing the end to the darkness in Riddleport. HA! I don't think he's found the right people...

Before we could recover from the confusing wave of information we received, Pint-size wandered over to where the two groups were supposedly waiting and saw what Bandhu had missed-they were all scarecrows. Mere stuffed facsimiles of the fearsome gangs planted in a scheme to trap us. A scheme that this Kwava knew something about. And while I wasn't about to trust him as far as I could throw him, the others thought it would be good to take him up on his offer of hospitality. So we followed him to his camp and attempted to untangle his strange tale. 

Seems that the Shrin-Rakora believe the bosses of Riddleport to be in league with dark elves, and that they are on the path to ushering in the rule of these apparent devious pointy-earred cousins. Kwava seemed to believe that Saul had recently found a new benefactor, and was thusly in league with the dark elves himself. This being reason enough for Kwava to want him dead. And he felt that the fact that Saul had ordered our demise was reason enough for us to want him dead as well. There were too many gaps in this elf's story... and even JuanJolio accused me of feeding him too many details in my attempts to pieces this all together. Finally Katal suggested we go talk to Saul and confront him with this information. Maybe even get the name of the dark elf Kwava was sure he was working for out of him. While I wanted to wring Saul's neck for other reasons, I felt this was a good compromise. 

Yeah, that didn't work out so well. I guess now is as good a time as any to mention that Saul had a total of fourteen thugs, an imp, and a boar guarding him and the Goblin. The doors were locked and barred and there were new shutters placed on the front windows. We were nearly almost jumped on the front step, except that the frog spotted the lookout before he could attack. That bought us some time. After some deliberation, we finally decided to break in the back door. We fought our way through the masses hired to also kill us, Katal getting badly torn up by the boar, and my rear being handed to me by that bloody imp. Kwava got his hands on Saul, as our former boss was attempting to make an escape, unfortunately killing him before he could get the name he was looking for. So much for talking peacefully. The only one we managed not to kill was Saul's personal bodyguard, and the owner of the boar. He was unconscious when the fighting was over, but JuanJolio made sure he would at least survive the night. Then we tied him up in the basement arena for safekeeping. After looting the bodies of the dead we proceeded to search the Goblin for any information to make sense of this insanity, starting with Saul's shockingly austere living quarters. Thankfully we had sharp enough eyes to find the hidden closet, wherein lie all of Saul's real accounting. Juanjolio was able to make sense of it, and relaid to us that Saul had been cooking the books for months, and that the Goblin is hemorrhaging money, money that is being siphoned off to an entity only recorded as D.A.

We checked the money vault, finding it empty, save an iron chest which held the deed to the place, building and land. Basically everything except for the underground smuggling tunnels that exist around the whole city. So we headed downstairs to see what we could find. There was a smell of Troglodytes coming from the wine cellar, as if some had been there recently. Gonna have to see what that is all about... Oddly (though maybe not so oddly) we found Lurer's signet ring in the boar's cage. I am assuming that Saul offed his former floor manager, sent the money to this "D.A." person, and sent us on a wild goose chase. Seems that was another in a long line of Saul's lies. And I fell for it all.

Upon further inspection of the arena we found that the sand was hiding a trap door. It is lock, of course, but surprise, surprise, the hand-key we took off Saul is the only thing that fits the lock. Feeling as though that was enough excitement for the night, we covered the trap door back over with sand and made our way back to the apartment to sleep off some of this pain. 
Oh, before he left, Kwava offered us potions of healing and asked that we find him again out in the Boneyard if we found the name of Saul's benefactor. I still don't quite understand that odd duck, but at least he seems like he might be a good egg...

29th of Pharast, 4709

In an interesting turn of events, we now we own a gambling hall. 

It took us a grand majority of the day to patch the place back up. We managed to offload a pile of gear on the local merchants for a pretty penny, securing ourselves two much needed wands charged with magical healing. JuanJolio seems more apt to restore damaged artwork then he is at restore damaged people. (I am so dead if he ever reads this...)
Speaking of our fair cleric, he stayed behind to watch over our new acquisition while we sold the goods, and when the other employees showed up for work, he told them that due to the strain, Saul had just run away. Run away to never return. 

Because lying to the people that work for you is always the best idea.


30th of Pharast, 4709

Good news: We got the Goblin operational again! Complete with mended windows fixed by our very own holy man of healing-everything-else-but-a-mouth-breather, JuanJolio. 

(Am I a little salty? Perhaps. Would I be here to write this if it weren't for him? Not likely. Did he do his darnedest to keep my butt alive in our kerfuffle against the former proprietor and his goons? Verily! Is he still a helpful but pretentious grump? I'll let you decide...)

Bad news: We lost liquor to those bloody, thieving troglodytes that have been stealing into our basement! And it was the good stuff, too. (Oh, and they also killed our one remaining hostage from the fight with Saul. The man who may or may not have been able to corroborate Kwava's insane conspiracy. So that's a bust.) Unfortunately, in our search for those wretched lizards, we found no sign of our stolen spirits. Though we were able to our revenge on the handful of troglodytes we found. Not to mention confrontations with a few of the other unsavory characters existing down there. And I may have broken the ladder, but we don't need to talk about that. 

Worse news: A comet hit the water a few miles out from town. The impact caused a tsunami that cut a destructive path through the Wharf district. It was past midnight by the time we got back into the Goblin. I was ready to hit it, but catastrophic terror from the skies just had to keep us awake for longer. Katal caught sight of the comet first. Once it was evident that it wasn't going to hit Riddleport I turned for bed again, only to be swept up with the frog in the big man's arms as he rushed us out of the Goblin, charging through the crowd for higher ground. A while later we were able to make it back to the Goblin and finally, finally get our beauty sleep. The impact of the comet broke our windows, as well as all the decanters behind the bar. More liquor gone down the drain.

 
31st of Pharast, 4709

Closed for repairs--again. Second time this week. Why is glass so blasted fragile? Are windows even that necessary? 

Gurgle decided to go on his own adventure to do a bit of rubber necking. He saw beached boats and bunyips, the former nearly killing him. 

Five of our employees have been forced out of their homes due to the flood, so we put them up in the rooms here...temporarily, of course. 


1st of Gozren, 4709

More repair made, with some slight damage to my personal pocketbook. Thanks to Katal for helping fund decanter replacement. We are up and running again!   


3rd of Gozren, 4709

And somehow our end of week books are still in the black! Our gain was about half what it's been in previous weeks... but we're still making money!! 

This might just work!

Oh, and apparently some of the yokals think they are going to get rich off of the fallen comet and have set sail for the nearby isle it crashed on. Some crazy yarn about skymetal...


5th of Gozren, 4709

I should have seen this coming. I mean, we have most of us been pretty vocal about having little love for the casino life, but I guess I was just getting into a groove over here... and now they all want to leave on a wild goose chase!

Three ships have set out for the Devil's Elbow, a small isle just off the coast of here. Yes, where it is believed the flying rock landed-thus endowing the once accursed sod with great fortune. Seems our "dear friend" Samarissa is heading out with the cypher mages and wants to hire us as their muscle. And now we're going, because why not leave the fairly lucrative business we have rolling here in town so we can chase some speculative prize. Let us cast our lots to the wind and be gamblers all!

(I don't want to go)


6th of Gozran, 4709

Many preparations were made today as the cypher mages' ship sails out in the morn. All hail the grand adventure! 

I'm not going. 

I just couldn't do it. I couldn't leave the Goblin. Not now that things are just starting to get better. I couldn't just up and leave. Especially for something that is just conjecture at this point anyway. No, this is not some elaborate ruse. Yes, I am being serious. I told the guys, and it's official that I'll be staying here to look after the Goblin. They are much better hired muscle than I am anyway. 
I plan to see them off at the docks tonight when they board their ship. Hopefully they all come back in one piece. Taking things into their own hands setting foot in that ghost town... There's a good reason no one lives out there anymore.  

Oh, Kwava came by the Goblin today. He wanted us to go check out Devil's Elbow. Surprise, surprise! He believes the end of the world is being ushered in by these "renegade elves" and that the comet is all part of the plan because the comet happened to fall the same time the blot disappeared. He even has a boat for us, waiting in the harbor.  Even though we turned him down, I think he still thinks we're working for/with him since the boys are headed to the isle anyway. What can you do?


((This will make it into the next journal, but for Brandon's sake I'll add it here. The ship they are taking is called the Flying Cloud, and is known for being quit fast. It's captained by a Jasper Creesy (I am probably butchering that spelling), who seems like a nice enough guy that treated us all to a scrumptious dinner of Reefclaw and veggies and wine. The meal was interrupted by a group of thugs that had boarded the ship bent on sabotage. We fought them off, but not before they made a mess of the sail and moorings. The ship is on fire, and we need to put it out.))

8th of Gozren, 4709

We made it to Devil's Elbow by dawn. It was a mere 8 hour trip, just as Creesy promised... albeit a day later than we intended, much to the chagrin of the leader of the cypher mages. He seems a nervous fellow, and a bit high strung, for my liking. He called our competency into question yesterday because we failed to keep the thugs from damaging the ship when they attacked. Claimed the whole business of having to leave a day late would be "bad for his report". He seems to be very by the books... and I can't say I'm a fan of that type of literature. 

While waiting for the Flying Cloud to be voyage ready yesterday we did another tour 'round town, "looking for the bunyip" as the frog put it. After all, we had plenty of time to kill. Surprisingly we were unable to find the beasty, but it seems that one of the bunyips victims was none other than JuanJolio's long lost neerdowell friend Guido Bandito. 

Guido.

Bandito.

I can now see how these two people, of such opposing moral compasses, ended up forming the bond of friendship. 

JuanJolio has now sworn a vow of vengeance, to be meted out on none other than the... meteor?! It was the frogs idea. I don't even know what is going on anymore. All I know is that despite my wishes, I got roped into coming on this wild goose chase. Bandhu made it very clear that if I chose the more sedentary life, I would be without a tutor in the arcane, as he would be nullifying our contract. If I want to keep pursuing spellcraft, I would have to comply with this ludicrous venture. 

So here I am. 

After convincing the lily-livered leader of the cypher mages that Creesy was better off dropping us off and coming back, then his own plan to make our fair captain stay in the harbor until the  mages had concluded their business, we unloaded all their gear (not part of the agreement) and made our way to our temporary residence. Before we left the dock a bedraggled crew appeared and requested passage off the island. The leader of the crew was a dwarf by the name of Goldhammer--very possibly the same crew that Riddleport's overlord hired to check out the meteor. They claimed that monsters of great speed and stealth had taken out many of their expedition with a fatally infectious bite capable of raising the dead. Also, there was something about something coming out of the bitten people's faces. It all sounded like the ravings of a crazed man to me. Either way Goldhammer did offer a cash reward to us if we were able to find any of their lost expedition members and bring them back with us, but if his stories are even half true I have my doubts that we will find any at all. 

On the way from the docks to the abandoned military settlement we came across several centipedes. Flesh eating centipedes. And by several, I mean many, all at once. They were small and annoying, getting all up into our...business, trying and succeeding in getting their pound of flesh. Our weapons were useless. Even my acid cantrip did little to deter them. Much to the irritation of Master Cypher Mage, we had to concede that part of the path to the 'pedes and ran, hoping our unwitting offering would be enough to keep them from following. 

Thankfully it didn't take too long to get to the settlement. JuanJolio was getting a little tired of carrying the mages' gear. It was strongly suggested to the mages that they either carry their own things from now on, or readjust the terms of our contract. Protection does not equal hierling. JuanJolio, in his infinate wisdom, assessed all the buildings to be structurally unstable. Between the passage of time, and recent ground shaking due to the meteor's landing, our sagacious friend informed us that any of the buildings could come down on us at any moment. But the MCM insisted upon setting up camp here, demanding to know which of the buildings was the most sound. Being in the best shape, the central tower was chosen. It took the mages until supper time to move all their worldly possesions into the tower, giving the four of us ample time to catch up on our sleep. Outside. Under the big blue sky. Without threat of crumbling architecture. So it was nary hours before sunset when the mages got the brilliant idea to go and gather their initial readings from the crater. Tempting fate a bit, if you ask me. But at least we were able to find some of the rumored "sky metal" everyone is so excited about. Not hoards of the stuff, but a good couple of pounds, which was more than I expected, really. JuanJolio seems to believe it will fetch us a good price at the market, so perhaps our coming out here wasn't a complete waste after all. 

We were attacked going both ways. Gurgle viciously slayed an axebeak by clambering up on it's back and thrusting his pen knife of a blade into the bird's vitals several times over, scaring the ever living daylights out of the MCM. Perhaps he will now think twice before questioning our competence... The return trip was graced with an aberration our healer called a Schir demon, or "Spite demon". This leering, mangy goatman, with it's foul, wicked looking halberd took JuanJolio down in seconds. We tried our best to fend him off, but Bandhu's attacks were ineffective, and with our glaive wielder out of the fight it was slow going. Samerissa had to step in and aid us with her electrically charged spells--putting us once again on the MCM's bad side. Petty fool.   
 


9th of Gozren, 4709

The frog has contracted some sickness. He's listless and looking very grey around the gills. If he had gills, that is. Seems he has something called the greypox. JuanJolio doesn't know how much he can do for him. Maybe it's time for a merc--no, I'm probably being too premature... We'll wait to see what the next 24 hours bring for the pint-size. Being that he is unable to move at all, we had to carry him with us on our trek to the crater. We spent four hours there today guarding the mages from the burned out wreckage of flora and fauna. The path there was quiet this morning, so either we scared everything off yesterday, or the many monstrous beings on the Elbow like to take their sweet time about things at the start of the day. Either way, it does not seem nearly as dangerous as promised. Nor as profitable. We found naught of the sky metals today. Perhaps they are all tapped out already. Seems I was right. This was a bit of a goose chase. At least we are getting paid by the cypher mages. Though, if the MCM has his way, he'll probably cut our stipend to a fraction of what was agreed upon, claiming that we didn't do our jobs right... 

Our return trip was quite a bit more harrowing than the rest of the day. One group of ruffians, most likely sent to the island by one of the many Riddleport gangs. There are so many that I have a hard time keeping track of who is who. They felt like we were easy pickings, but we made short work of them. Only one managed to escape. Then, when we were nearly back to the base we were ambushed by several unworldly quadrupeds. Katal called them Akata. Their sleek bodies and tentacled heads made them look as if they belonged in the sea, but their sinewy legs were definitely built for the land. They were a fearsome contradiction. The mages' apprentices who had wisely prepared some offensive spells that morning offered what little help they could, but in the end we bettered the beasts and made it back without completely squishing the frog. 

Hopefully he'll pull through the night. 



10th of Gozren, 4709

The green boy lives! JuanJolio is a miracle worker! I must admit, I am relieved to see the frog running around again. 

With the mages having no need for our protection today due to their need to do bookish things, we had the day free to roam. So we followed our curiosity (and boredom) over to the west side of the isle to see what we could see. The journey to the point was nigh uneventful, though we found enough sky metals to make up for the drought yesterday. We discovered three smaller craters from chunks of the meteor that had broken off whilst it was still hurtling through the sky and each one had yielded something of value. The lighthouse on the point was a burned out wreck, infested with more of those blood thirsty centipedes, along with some of their larger cousins. JuanJolio, Bandu, and I led the most logical retreat, only to find out that Katal and the frog had not followed! Sometimes I think those two are more brawn than is good for them. 

Pint-size...brawny... Yup, I did just write that. Perhaps the Devil's Elbow is affecting my brain.

So against our best judgement, we turned around and fought the centipedes with our moony compatriots. It took a while, but my acid cantrip was able to whittle them down to nothing. Though the picture of the three boys running circles, barely staying ahead of the creepers as I shot them with my paltry spell will continue to bring me joy for years to come. 

Once the insects of mass destruction were cleared out Bandhu was able to explore what was left of the lighthouse. The armory was about the only thing intact, yielding a few sellable weapons. Our return trip was just as uneventful as the way out, making our little private expedition the least annoying thing about this whole trip so far.     

And yet, as they say, there is no rest for the wicked. I mean, what fun would that be anyway?!

As soon as we got back to the old base we heard frantic screaming from the tower as the cypher mages begged us to get into the tower quickly and save them. We had barely made it inside the door when a couple dozen of those strange Akata things rushed the tower and started scaling it's walls. As the Akata were bound and determined to crack that place like an egg, we tried to create a choke point at one of the windows on the second level so we could start dispatching the beasts before they could reach the top. But then that blasted son of a sea monkey, the illustrious MCM, accused us of condemning everyone to death because we were letting the monsters in--then tried to leave out the front door. The blasted fool nearly killed us all himself. Because, instead of allowing one of our heaviest hitters to do his job and fight Akata, the MCM monopolized Katal as the monk tried to talk the idiot down from his stupidity, allowing over twenty violent quadrupedes to climb the unstable tower, shaking it off of it's moorings and sending it hurtling over the cliff into the sea. JuanJolio, Bandhu, the frog, and I all made it out of the tower before it plunged, but only just barely. The MCM in his glory, also made it out alive. Of course, he added this to our ever growing list of proofs for our incompetence later. Even though we warned him when we got to the encampment that something like this would happen. JuanJolio told him the tower was unsafe. Would he listen? No. So he endangered himself and all of his associates. And he wants to blame us for his failure? Not in a thousand lifetimes! Pint-size and I fended off the remaining Akata who hadn't been crushed under the tower, and Katal valiantly fought his way through the sinking tower saving the lives of Samerissa, and Tamitha, one of the apprentices. Bandhu lent some aid in getting them back up the cliff and we spent some time in a bit of shock, licking out wounds. We healed up via the wands until my nerves got the better of me and I jammed the magic by using the wrong inflection for the trigger word. 

Twice. 

For both wands. 

Bandhu will never let me live that down.  

After some discussion (and blatant accusation from the MCM) we decided to make our way to the other end of the island. There we would camp for the night in the southernmost point's lighthouse and then ambush and overtake Kleg's nearby encampment on the morrow. What with all the trouble that brute has been to the casino he has this coming. And who knows, with all the time Kleg and his gang have been on the island chances are they have enough information about the crater to replace what the mages lost in the great tower topple of 4709. Maybe.


((That night the gang was beset by a wraith. Bandhu scored a magical sword, and a garnet. The head cypher mage lived through the night.
The next day we went to Kleg's encampment. Bandhu and Gurgle were sneaking around to the main tent. Katal and Veruna decided something seemed off and went to investigate. They got a welcome invitation by Kleg to join him in his tent. The guards seem very fatigued. K and V tried to get them to talk, but all that they would say was that our little group's "visit" surprised them because we weren't who they were expecting. All the soldiers look overworked and a bit beat up. There is an obvious pillory in the center of camp that looks like it has gotten recent use.
So Katal and Veruna are in the tent with an overly friendly Kleg, and Gurgle is about to bust through from the outside of the tent in a murderous sneak attack. Bandhu has his head in his hands. ))